


Some Call It Dancing

by DezoPenguin



Category: GrimGrimoire
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-04 19:10:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4149534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DezoPenguin/pseuds/DezoPenguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Royal Magician Lillet Blan never feels comfortable at Court Society events, but when her colleague Emily Livingston's little sister is making her debut, Lillet is left having to attend.  Fortunately, her lover Amoretta is her escort, and has a few ideas about making Lillet feel extremely comfortable indeed.  But, it's a toss-up whether Lillet will have the most trouble dodging the snares of social protocol, dealing with a potential threat to the Livingstons' reputation, or just making it back home with her gown intact!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> For whatever reason, I wanted to write something explicitly smutty with my favorite fanfiction couple. Unfortunately, I fail at smut, in that plot keeps sneaking in and eating half the fic. Nooo, it wasn't enough for me that Lillet and Amoretta make love at the ball, but I had to season the mix with an admittedly minor plot and a fair amount of worldbuilding. For those who just came to the fic for a quick fix of amorous content, you'll have to wait until Chapter 3 (and 5, and 6, and 8...). In any event, I hope that you all enjoy!
> 
> Special thanks, as always, must go out to my wife, Tarma Hartley, for her review and insight on this story from the female perspective and making sure that I didn't horribly embarrass myself from an accuracy standpoint.

# Prologue

"Thanks for the help, Amoretta," Marne Labatt said as the two apprentices walked into the Royal House of Magic's library. "I don't think I'd ever have gotten that set of Runes set up for Master Tanqueray if you hadn't shown me that workaround. You're a real lifesaver!"

Amoretta Virgine tipped her head to the side, looking oddly at her friend.

"I don't believe that Master Tanqueray would have killed you if you had failed his task, Marne. That would be a criminal act, and in any case he doesn't seem like the type of man who would do that."

Marne stared back, blinking in surprise.

"Um, I didn't mean it literally; it was just an idiom and—" She broke off mid-sentence as Amoretta replaced her confused look with a sly smile, prompting Marne to giggle. "Okay, you got me with that one."

The only hint to the reason the beautiful ash-blonde had been able to tease her friend into thinking she'd taken her literally was her eyes, which were the rich, deep red of old wine or fresh-spilled blood. She wasn't human at all, but a homunculus, an artificial life form created by magic. Unlike the ordinary sort of homunculi, though, she had been constructed around a previously-existing spirit that served as her core, an anchoring force for her unnatural existence. It gave her an independence and stability that was absent from most of her brethren.

She had no memory of her previous existence, though, which occasionally led to some surprising gaps in her awareness, not just in terms of language but in terms of some of the basics of human interaction.

After all, Amoretta's previous existence had been as an angel.

"We can consider that your payment for the help," she said, still smiling. She could feel the soft spark within her, the warmth that was Marne's gentle good feelings. The one thing her artificial life needed to sustain itself was love, to replace that she lost by not being a natural part of creation. Her creator had not loved her, but she'd found that love in Lillet Blan, who'd brought her with her to the Royal House of Magic. Amoretta could still feel, though, the lesser love that was the feeling of genuine friendship, and it helped warm her soul in times like this, when she couldn't be in Lullet's physical presence.

They rounded a corner and found two other apprentices sitting at a long table in a kind of cul-de-sac formed by bookshelves. Marne's waist-length braid bounced as she all but skipped up to them.

"Hi, there!"

"Marne!" The two of them looked up and spoke as one. Though being brother and sister meant that they were fraternal twins, no more bound to be alike than any other siblings, the Avaledas could easily have passed for identical. They shared the same red hair, the same green eyes, the same dusting of freckles across tawny skin, the same square-framed, steel-rimmed spectacles, the same blue-and-white robes, and the same mildly voracious taste in handsome older men. "We weren't expecting you," Karon went on. "Amoretta, yes, but Kelce and I thought that you'd still be tied up with that nasty little ward project." His sister nodded her agreement.

Marne smirked and pulled out a chair.

"You've got Amoretta to thank for that. She told me how to completely rework one set of Runes so that they supported one another so I could put less mana into each one."

"Hey, nice trick."

"Can you show us, too? It sounds really useful," Karon added.

"I really didn't have anything to do with it," Amoretta protested, not wanting to take undue credit. "It's something that I saw Lillet do a couple of years ago and I thought that it might help in Marne's situation. It isn't something that I invented."

"Ah, but Mistress Blan didn't tell me about it, you did," Marne said, and sat down. Amoretta took the chair next to her. "I'm glad she invented it, but you're the one who actually made it relevant to my life."

Amoretta gave in and blushed at the praise.

"You're welcome, then."

"And now," Kelce announced, "we can get to researching for our Trial Work!"

"We're lucky Master Oporto agreed to put our names forward. He thinks that we're ready for Senior Apprentice status, but the committee's pretty strict."

"Well, that's not surprising," Marne said. "It means an increase in your wages and status, so the Royal House of Magic is limited in the number of people it can support at that level. Otherwise they have to go to the Grand Council and get it approved by the Minister of the Exchequer. You're lucky they're willing to take on two of you at once."

"Tell me about it!" Kelce exclaimed.

"The initial exams were murderous," his sister agreed. "Two days of written exams and one of practical testing. I was utterly ready to drop!"

"I'm surprised that you're ready to start researching," Marne said. "When I took my Senior Apprentice tests I was so stressed out after them that I didn't open a grimoire for two days!"

"Oh, is that why they give you a week to prepare your Trial Work?"

"That's right, Amoretta. Since the task is assigned, they can't get a head start on it, either. It's just lucky that they're allowed to get study help."

"Why is that? It seems unusual that a test of a magician's ability would allow other magicians to assist in preparing it."

"Practicality," Kelce suggested. "They know that most people would cheat and do it anyway, so rather than try and police it, they just allow it. After all, the real point of the Trial Work is the practical aspect, to show that the magician can handle the burden of combining two types of magic to shape an effect."

"You are a cynic, sister dear."

"But probably correct."

"It doesn't seem right that a policy would be created in the belief that dishonesty is inevitable."

"Face it, Amoretta," Marne told her. "Most people simply aren't as honest as you are."

"It really isn't very hard. People spend too much time and effort avoiding the truth; it would be much easier and less troublesome if they could simply accept it for what it was."

Karon laughed at that.

"Amoretta, you've just gone and solved a good half of all the problems people have with that one sentence."

"Lillet tells me almost the same thing. It's very disappointing, though."

It was easy to tell that she was among friends, as the chuckles at her frustrated innocence were amused rather than mocking.

"Speaking of Mistress Blan," Marne changed the subject, "why hasn't she recommended you for Senior Apprentice yet, Amoretta?"

"Yeah, with your memory you'd do wonderfully on the written test, and Mistress Blan could probably come up with all kinds of ideas to help you simplify the Trial Work."

Amoretta shook her head.

"I wouldn't be eligible to be a Senior Apprentice. Alchemy is the only type of magic that I can do, and the rank requires a showing of proficiency in a second."

"Oh, that's right. I'd forgotten about that."

"It's not surprising that you would when she just helped you work out a very tricky Glamour problem," Kelce said.

"Is that limitation because you're a..." Karon started

"Homunculus?" Amoretta finished for him. "It doesn't bother me if you say it." Probably, Karon just had trouble because he didn't want to offend her by somehow implying that her existence was somehow lesser than a human's, but really, she thought, he ought to know her well enough by now to know that speaking a plain truth was hardly going to upset her of all people. They'd just gotten through talking about that, even! "And yes, we think that that's the reason why."

"I think it's just amazing that you can use Rune magic at all."

"And I think," Marne said, "that we're getting off-topic. Specifically, the topic of what has you two carrot-tops feeling so peppy!"

The twins' remarkable resemblance continued in their mirrored expressions. Amoretta noted that it was the first time she'd ever seen anyone blush with a look of smug self-satisfaction on their features.

Probably because Marne and Amoretta were female, Kelce was the one who spoke first.

"Well, we found a good stress relief technique," she said.

"Exercise," Karon contributed.

"Vigorous exercise."

"For an extended period."

"We picked up a couple of strapping young palace guardsmen apiece, took them back to our rooms, went at it hammer and tongs until two in the morning, then fell asleep and didn't get up until noon," Kelce finally stopped beating around the bush.

"When we woke up, we were quite thoroughly relaxed and refreshed," her brother added.

"If a bit sore in curious places."

Marne rolled her eyes at their smirks.

"I don't know if you two are embarrassed or bragging."

"Probably a little of both."

"It does seem like an interesting idea, though," Amoretta said. "I know that when Lillet and I have a fight, that making love can help us calm down and feel better."

"Make-up sex is a thing," Marne agreed. "But are you sure that Mistress Blan would want you telling us about that?"

"Why not? It's true. And Karon and Kelce's story just now was much more shameless since it involved multiple partners and casual fornication done for physical pleasure only."

The twins being the twins, they broke out into laugher. Marne just sighed and patted Amoretta on the shoulder.

"And this is why you're able to fool people with things like the lifesaver joke."

"Did I say something wrong?"

"Well, not really _wrong_ , just a bit...frank?"

"It's all right, Marne," Kelce told her. "We're not offended or anything."

"I'm glad," Amoretta said. "I wasn't trying to be offensive, but I know that I don't always know exactly how to be tactful."

"If you ask me," Marne said, "anybody who discusses their sexual adventures in public, particularly around their presently unattached friend, has surrendered any claim to tactful treatment."

"Well, if you wanted to come along the next time we were looking for company—" Karon offered.

"That was not what I was trying to imply!" Marne yelped, and this time even Amoretta joined in the laughter. The arrival of a librarian to shush them made the four apprentices drop the topic entirely and get to work on the project that had brought them there, but even being scolded for making a racket in the library didn't make her unhappy. After all, she'd learned something new!


	2. Chapter One

# Chapter One

"I wish that we could just stay home," Royal Magician Lillet Blan admitted with a sigh.

This was not the usual reaction of a nineteen-year-old girl to the prospect of a Court Society ball. This was particularly the case when the girl in question was clever and personable and moreover had blossomed from the childlike cuteness she'd had at sixteen into a tall, curvaceous womanly beauty that was sure to catch many an approving eye.

"It's too bad that I couldn't have packed in some etiquette lessons when I was stuck in looping time at the Tower," she continued. "If I'd known Hiram was a prince, I'd have spent a hundred loops or so having him play tutor!"

Amoretta giggled even as she pulled the laces of her lover's dress tighter. The young women had played lady's-maid for one another, since their servant Gaff was both male and an elf.

"I don't think it will be that bad, Lillet."

Lillet sighed heavily.

"Maybe not, but I don't think it'll be good, either. I hate these things."

The problem was that Lillet had been born into the peasant class; her family were farmers. Indeed, one of the reasons she'd so enthusiastically pursued a career in magic was so that she could help support her family and pay for her little brothers to go away to school. Her eligibility to be on the dance floor instead of among the kitchen staff at the Marchioness Livingston's ball was based entirely upon her skill in magic, not her bloodline. Like Court ministers, Church hierarchs, or military commanders, Royal Magicians were automatically members of Society, and it was important to live up to that for the sake of positively presenting themselves to those with power and influence.

Lacking the years of formal training in etiquette and deportment that the highborn received, Lillet spent much of her time at social functions desperately afraid that she'd put a foot wrong. Sometimes literally, if dancing was involved, though that at least she'd gotten the hang of through practice.

She looked at herself in the mirror, taking stock of what she saw. As a little girl, she'd often imagined herself a princess at a ball, and the truth of the matter was, she still felt like that little girl playing dress-up. It didn't matter that her violet dress with black accents was done in the latest style by a fashionable _modiste_. The bare shoulders and strapless neckline, the black gloves that came up past the elbow, the pearl ear-drops, they all seemed less like a wardrobe but toys, like how the child Lillet had worn a chain of flowers and pretended it was a tiara.

"You look lovely," Amoretta said. The simple statement gave Lillet a small tingle of relief; Amoretta never gave insincere compliments; in fact one of their nastier fights as a couple had come about because she'd been a little _too_ honest about one of Lillet's early, fumbling attempts at presenting herself to Society.

That memory sent the butterflies to flight in her belly yet again.

"Thank you, little love. You look really beautiful, too." And she did, in an icy pale confection like a frozen waterfall. Instead of gloves, she wore detached sleeves like those of her fantastical outfit from the Silver Star Tower, and her hands were bare. "And I'm really happy that you can come with me."

The invitation had been to them both, not even to Lillet "and guest," since the one giving it knew very well of the young women's relationship. The identity of the inviter was good and bad, though, because it was the reason Lillet couldn't just invent a reason to duck out of her responsibility to attend. Lady Emily Livingston, the marchioness's older daughter, was herself a Royal Magician who had been one of the primary people to help Lillet learn and adapt to Court etiquette.

_Which just goes to show my point about how I'm afraid of making a mistake. Mistress Livingston spends ninety percent of her time dressed in an old gray smock and canvas apron because of all the burns and chemical spills she gets in her Alchemy laboratory,but this is all second nature to her since she's been trained for it since childhood._

That wasn't entirely fair, though. After all, the reason it was so important for Lillet to attend the ball was that Mistress Livingston had chosen the Alchemy laboratory over the social round. Her mother had insisted that she attend the ball, though, because Emily's younger sister Rowena was making her debut this Season and it was important that Mistress Livingston attend in order to show to Society that she wasn't some kind of strange eccentric whose reputation would in turn reflect poorly in the family on a whole.

_It's all so silly!_ And yet fortunes could be won and lost, political alliances made and broken over such trifles, things that might eventually trickle down and affect the well-being of hundreds or thousands of people affected by the actions of the families involved. To say nothing of the more immediate consequences to Lady Rowena, whose chances of making the marriage that she wanted might be sharply curtailed if her sister proved to be a social embarrassment. All because of how things went at a society ball!

As for why _Lillet_ needed to be there, well, Mistress Livingston needed support. Part of it was just personal: obviously, since she'd gone to work as a Royal Magician, most of her friends and close companions were themselves magicians, and friendly faces always helped. More than that, though, was the fact that other Royal Magicians would in turn reflect well on the position itself, on the respectability of the Royal House of Magic as an institution and therefore upon Lady Emily's choice. Royal Magicians had the status brought by their position, but Society wasn't entirely sure if they were _respectable_ or not.

Lillet sighed and said aloud, "I just can't see how a farmer's daughter is the best choice for showing off the Royal House of Magic's claim to social respectability."

" _Lillet_ ," Amoretta said firmly, "there are very good reasons why you are the perfect person to be the face of magic. You are a beautiful young woman, and you're intelligent, personable, clever, and kind. You are exactly the kind of person who makes a good impression, and helps convince people that magic itself isn't frightening or evil."

"I...don't know what to say."

Amoretta closed her arms around Lillet's waist from behind. The slender woman's warmth seemed to flow through her soothingly.

"You're just frightened, dearest. I know that this isn't something you're comfortable with, but I'm sure that you'll be fine. I know that you're nervous because you're not as comfortable with formal society as you are with magic or casual conversation, but I also know that you have all the knowledge that you need to be everything Mistress Livingston needs from you."

"I wish I had as much faith in myself as you have in me."

"Well, it's not hard for me to have faith in you when you've already saved my life twice, by rescuing me along with everyone else at the Silver Star Tower from the Archmage and Grimlet, and then by giving me a reason to live. What are a few over-proud lords and ladies next to that?"

"At least with Archmage Calvaros, I could feed him to a demon," Lillet snarked. "I can't do that to those society folk."

"Do _they_ need to know that?" Amoretta said, smiling softly. Seeing the expression in the mirror, Lillet turned and smiled back, sliding her fingertips along Amoretta's cheek, following the slightly sharp angle of her jaw.

"Why, Amoretta, you're not suggesting that I deliberately deceive them, are you?"

Amoretta let out a little gasp, eyes widening.

"Lillet, you know I wouldn't say that!" She then broke into a blush, looking down. "I just thought, well, it's like tact, isn't it? I don't think that anyone is likely to ask if you'll turn them into a toad for being rude to them."

Lillet chuckled.

"You must be really concerned for me if you're willing to suggest taking advantage of a lie by omission, even if it doesn't involve me actually omitting anything."

"Of course I'm concerned. I love you."

"I know you do, and I love you, too."

It was interesting, in that Amoretta could literally feel the sustaining force of Lillet's love, but she liked to hear it in words as well. Lillet thought there must be a message there about communication, but wasn't sure exactly how. But she was more than happy to tell the homunculus how she felt a dozen times or a hundred times each day.

Sometimes, the truth was easy.

Lillet looked at her reflection in the mirror again.

"Do you think I'm ready, then? I feel kind of naked without my hat." She suppressed the urge to reach up and touch her hair, for fear that the slightest pressure might knock several pins loose and send the whole mass cascading down over her bare shoulders.

"Hmm, I think with your hair up, it draws attention to your neck and shoulders," Amoretta decided after a few moments' study. "Some kind of jewelry would help break up the plainness of it, I think."

Lillet studied the effect in the reflection and decided that her lover had a point.

"I see what you mean, but I don't have any jewelry, at least not suitable to wear to a society ball. I could let my hair down and change the style so it doesn't emphasize my bare neck as much."

"No, wait, I have something."

Amoretta went over to their wardrobe, opened it, and from her side extracted a small wooden box. She brought it over to Lillet.

"May I?"

"Of course."

"Close your eyes."

Obediently, Lillet let her eyelids drift shut.

Amoretta turned Lillet back towards the mirror, then took something out of the box. Her fingers lightly stroked Lillet's neck, her touch cool, and then Lillet felt a satin slipperiness move into place, sliding across her flesh in what was almost a caress. The cold touch of metal followed at the back of her neck as a buckle was fastened, securing something in place with a gentle pressure encircling her throat.

"All right, you can open them now."

Lillet opened her eyes and looked into her reflection. What Amoretta had put around her neck was an inch-wide black satin ribbon, edged in pale violet lace that matched the color of Lillet's dress. Set at the front was an amethyst in a thin gold setting, delicately cut into a cameo of a woman's face in profile.

"It's lovely, Amoretta!"

"I originally bought it for you as an anniversary gift, but then I decided you could really use it for the ball."

"You're right, and I adore it." She brushed her fingers over the stone, which was her favorite color. "Do you know, with a little imagination, I think the cameo looks something like you."

Amoretta smiled shyly at that. Lillet had the feeling that her lover liked the idea that Lillet was wearing something that reminded her of Amoretta.

"Well, then, little love, shall we be off?"

She offered her arm, and Amoretta took it, sliding her hand along Lillet's gloved forearm as she did.

"We shall indeed."

They picked up their cloaks and left the suite. Gaff, the elf boy who was Lillet's servant, was waiting outside. He stared at them, his ears even going a little red.

"You...you look nice, both of you," he stammered out, making it plain that he thought they looked a lot better than "nice" but was too embarrassed to gush.

"Thank you, Gaff," Amoretta said.

"Yes, thank you," Lillet said. "Is the carriage ready?"

"Yes, Lillet. It's No. 4 in the mews."

As a Royal Magician, Lillet would have been entitled to take a carriage from the Palace mews while on official business. But since there were rarely enough carriages in service to keep the drivers busy at any one time, they would often hire themselves out to Palace residents who didn't keep a carriage of their own. It was a little more expensive, but considerably cleaner, more comfortable, and more reliable than a hackney cab. The carriage was waiting for them just as Gaff had arranged; as the two women approached, the driver stepped away from the horses, his many-caped greatcoat flapping around his ankles, and opened the door. He flipped down the step and prepared to help them in, but Lillet climbed up by herself, using the door-handle for support, then turned and extended a hand to assist Amoretta. They settled themselves on the seats, facing opposite one another.

"Glenmorrow House, please," Lillet told the driver. "In the New City, on St. Valin's Circle."

"Yes, Mistress Blan," he said, touching the brim of his high hat at her, then closed the door. In a moment, they heard the creak of him climbing up into his seat and the snap of the reins before the carriage jolted into motion.

"So, we're on our way," Lillet said. The butterflies in her stomach had receded a bit, soothed by the warming sensation she'd gotten from Amoretta's closeness and her gift, but were starting up again. There was, she supposed, no permanent antidote possible to her nerves. It was like magical combat; only experience, familiarity, and success made it something where logical risk-assessment and calm analysis replaced fear.

_Hopefully, it won't take centuries' worth of recurring time loops for me to adapt to this._

Amoretta leaned forward and squeezed Lillet's knee.

"It's going to be all right, Lillet, really it is."

The carriage rattled across the cobblestones, wheel-rims echoing and banging. Luckily, the Palace mews kept its vehicles in top condition; each machine was well-sprung so very little of the bouncing was transmitted to the occupants.

"I'm sure that you're going to have a wonderful time."

She held Lillet's gaze for a long moment while she said it, and her fingers continued to exert gentle pressure, lingering for a bit more than the reassuring gesture required. Too, she had leaned a bit too far forward, more than it would take for her to reach out comfortably, and it caused Amoretta's pelisse to open, which simultaneously left Lillet with quite a direct view of the way her décolletage framed her high, firm breasts.

In the next moment, Amoretta sat back up, composing herself on the seat once again, but Lillet was left with the lingering memory. Had Amoretta been deliberately flirting with her? If so, it had worked, leaving a different kind of nervous tingle in Lillet's belly.

She thought at first to respond, but after a moment's consideration decided not to. If Amoretta had meant it as an invitation to suggestive banter, it would have been more obvious, without a question. As she hadn't, she'd had something else in mind—or Lillet was completely misinterpreting her gesture and she'd meant it only to reassure.

Lillet hoped that that wasn't the case. It was only to be expected that she'd appreciate her lover's appearance, savor her touch, let her eyes linger on the curves of her body. That was part of _being_ lovers, to _be_ attracted to one another, the sensual memories they'd made together part and parcel of the love they shared, the relationship they'd built between themselves. But she didn't like to ascribe motives to Amoretta and then be wrong about them, particularly of that kind.

They'd been together for over three years now, after all. Even though Amoretta's actions weren't always what a human's would be, Lillet still ought to be able to tell if her lover was flirting with her!

Amoretta uncrossed her legs, then recrossed them with the other leg on top. She wasn't looking directly at Lillet, but instead giving her a sidealong ( _teasing?_ ) glance.

"I meant to ask this earlier," she said, "but is there anything important that you think might happen tonight, or that I need to be aware of?"

Lillet thought it over. Any major Society event was guaranteed to involve by its very nature any amount of political maneuvering. The Season wasn't just an opportunity for the young and eligible nobility to meet one another and perhaps ally themselves with an equally eligible match, but for all manner of alliances and factions to be crafted, the future of the kingdom shaped. As the saying went, their battles were fought at the ball. But that was in general terms only, not in preparation for anything specific.

"Lady Emily didn't mention anything that I needed to worry about, so I don't think that you have anything to be concerned with." She smiled and added with genuine relief, "I'm glad of it, too! I'm nervous enough without having any specific objectives."

"Thank you. I didn't want to accidentally create any trouble."

"I don't think you'd do that. Honestly, Amoretta, you're better at this sort of thing than I am. You're no more ignorant about the rules of Court Society than I was, and you remember them better, plus you're a lot more graceful at dancing."

"Even if I do always want to lead?" Amoretta said, and this time Lillet _knew_ she was teasing.

"Well, you know that I don't mind when the girl I love wants to direct things." This sally drew a blush, and Amoretta shifted slightly in her seat. "But mostly," Lillet returned to the topic, "I think it's because you don't care as much. I mean, it really doesn't matter to you personally, so you just go and present yourself as you are and that's all there is to it. It doesn't really matter to you, not really, if they accept you or not except for my sake, so you're more comfortable with it all."

"Why does it matter to you?" Amoretta wondered. "I understand about wanting to present the right impression for magicians, and to help Mistress Livingston, but I'm not sure that I see why it is that winning their approval is important to you for yourself."

Lillet shrugged. It wasn't actually a hard question.

"Because I'm a peasant girl dressed up among the rich and powerful. Without my magic, I'd never get the opportunity to walk through the door unless I took a job as a serving-maid. Nothing in my life ever prepared me to expect something like this. And as for my magic, everyone thinks of me as a genius prodigy, who can do things no one's ever imagined, and the reality is that I'm not a prodigy; I've just had centuries longer to practice."

Amoretta looked at her for a few seconds, then nodded as if coming to some conclusion, leaned forward, and flicked the tip of Lillet's nose.

"Ow!"

"I've told you to stop saying that. It's good that you don't get puffed up with pride about your abilities, but false modesty is just as bad as arrogance."

Lillet rubbed her nose.

"It wasn't false modesty. I wasn't pretending to be humble."

"It's false because you're _wrong_. If you hadn't had the potential to be a great magical talent, you would never have been approved to go to the Silver Star Tower in the first place. You've had advantages in developing that, but you had to use them yourself, and if you had the opportunity, then you had to make use of _that_ to work and to practice and to study and to earn every bit of that knowledge and power under conditions that I can't imagine that any person could conveniently understand. I scarcely comprehend how you could have kept your sanity, let alone to be the wonderful person that I love!"

Her eyes were flashing scarlet, and Lillet actually recoiled back into her seat at the sheer forcefulness of Amoretta's words.

"So no, perhaps you are not truly a genius prodigy who mastered magic to rival the Archmage's before turning twenty, but that power and that magic are real, and they're yours honestly, not gained through some trick or fraud. I don't like it when you don't give yourself enough respect."

"Amoretta, I...I don't know what to say."

"I would suggest that you apologize, and promise to pay more attention next time. It really upsets me when you talk that way about yourself."

"I'd like to, but...I promise that I'll try, at least. It's not always easy, especially when I'm not dealing with magic directly, but just society. I'll try as hard as I can, for your sake, though."

"It's for _your_ sake that it's important to me, Lillet."

"Well, for my sake, too, then." She grinned, and wriggled her nose. "At the least, I'm sure that you'll be there to remind me when I go wrong again."

Amoretta smirked, something that she did perhaps once a year (she was really more of the matter-of-fact type when she was right about something rather than the smug sort), so Lillet returned the look.

"So, then," she quipped, "at least I got treated to something rare."

Smugness was replaced by surprise on her lover's face.

"What do you mean?"

"Mmn, that's a secret, little love," Lillet teased, and fending off Amoretta's attempts to find out what she meant kept her nerves at bay right up to the gates of their destination.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line, "their battles are fought at the ball," which I paraphrased here, was originally from Masquerades, by Jeff Grubb and Andria Heyday. It clearly stuck in my head, because I thought it was a more famous quote, but I didn't find any other attribution.


	3. Chapter Two

# Chapter Two

Glenmorrow House, the Livingston town residence, was a stately mansion in the heart of the wealthiest district of the New City, one of the first houses built when the nobility had originally started moving out of the Old Quarter. Lights blazed from behind the windows, a cheery signal to herald the festivities within.

At the door, Lillet and Amoretta were met by a very proper servant in blue-and-gold livery and a powdered wig. Lillet presented their invitations, which he took, glanced at for the bare minimum of time to verify them, and ushered the two women inside. Maids took their pelisses while the invitations were passed on ahead of them, so that by the time they reached the ballroom the herald was ready to step forward and announce, "Royal Magician Lillet Blan and Miss Amoretta Virgine." Not for the first time Lillet reflected that the work of the staff in a great house such as this was an efficient and well-ordered a machine as any clockwork.

The receiving line was waiting to greet them upon their entry to the ballroom. Lillet and Amoretta curtsied to the Marchioness, who was a slender, petite woman with her hair up in white ringlets, a white mantle over her shoulders and upper chest, and sapphire jewelry at her wrists, ears, and throat. Her gaze was as cold and blue as her jewels, showing neither the slightest trace of approval nor scorn.

Next to her mother, Lady Emily was openly smiling. Even though she'd seen it before at other events, Lillet was astonished at how the alchemist could so completely transform herself into an elegant lady in green and cream, oak-brown hair framing her face.

Seventeen-year-old Rowena had the same coloration as her sister, and like Lady Emily was much taller than her mother. Her youth was obvious, though, from her coltish figure and rounded face. Her dress, too, was the cream shade her sister used for accents, and Lillet was reminded of a rule she'd been taught, that debutantes wore whites or pastels to symbolize their innocence. Thankfully, it was a rule that Lillet had never needed to worry about even when she was that age because as a Royal Magician she was treated by Society as an independent adult.

"Thank you for coming, Lillet, Amoretta," Emily said with evident relief; she wasn't a demonstrative woman when chimeras weren't running amok, so it was even more clear how much she genuinely appreciated their support.

"We're glad to lend our presence," Lillet said, and it wasn't _exactly_ a lie—she really was happy to help someone who'd shown her kindness right from the start.

Lady Emily proceeded to make the introductions. Rowena seemed a bit shy and distracted, but bore up well enough, and Lillet managed not to trip over her tongue as they passed on into the ballroom. Accepting their dance cards, Lillet and Amoretta quickly filled in each other's names for the first and last waltzes, sharing a giddy little smile as they did so.

"Shall we circulate, little love?" Lillet asked brightly, offering her arm. Smiling, Amoretta wove hers through Lillet's and slid up next to her, close enough that Lillet could feel the pressure of her hip through their dresses.

They strolled along the borders of the glittering room, taking in the setting. It was hard, to be honest, to keep from wildly rubbernecking everywhere. The domed ceiling and towering windows were not only majestic, but practical; the glass doors opened out onto the terrace and it all prevented the atmosphere from becoming stifling from the presence of at least four hundred people and the mirror-lensed chandeliers in which dozens of candles burned to turn the room as bright as a spring day. At the height of the dome, a skylight was set, and Lillet smiled as she noticed a faint gleam of green light.

"So, she actually did it."

"Who? Um, and what did they do?"

"Mistress Livingston—Lady Emily, I suppose I should remember to say tonight. Two years ago I taught her the Rune I designed to control the flow of heat through window-glass, and she said that she was going to use it in her family's ballroom. It looks like she did."

"I've heard people talk about how guests would faint from the heat and the press of bodies," Amoretta agreed, "so it's probably a very good idea."

"I wish I could simplify it. It's the kind of practical application of magic that would be useful for society if we could make it feasible for a craft-worker to do instead of needing a Master-level magician."

"Talking shop at a ball, Mistress Blan?"

"Oh!"

Lillet turned to see who had addressed her and found herself face-to-face with a blond, bearded gentleman in blue and gold, an auburn-haired woman by his side.

"I'm sorry if I startled you. Sir Warren Smithwick, at your service, and this is my wife Eleanore."

"I'm pleased to meet you both. May I present my companion, Miss Amoretta Virgine?"

"A pleasure."

"You have me at a loss, Sir Warren. Have we been introduced?" In Court Society, it generally wasn't done for someone to just approach a stranger and start chatting. Rather, an introduction would be arranged through mutual acquaintances.

"I'm afraid not, but Lady Emily has mentioned you on more than one occasion, as the Royal House of Magic's young genius."

Lillet would have offered some demurral, but the memory of Amoretta's displeasure was still fresh in her mind and she was able to suppress the reflex.

"You're very kind to say so, Sir Warren."

"You needn't thank me; I was just repeating what I've been told. Now, me, I wouldn't know a witch from a stage performer until she gave me green skin and a taste for flies, but Lady Emily knows what she's at. It's good to—"

He was cut off by a sharp exhalation of breath from his wife.

"Eleanore?"

She evidently hadn't meant the sound for any of her companions; while her lips were pinched and eyes narrowed, her _moue_ of distaste was not directed at them but at something she was looking at past Amoretta's shoulder.

"What is it, my dear?"

"I can't believe that he'd be here."

"Whom do you mean?"

"Him, over there. De Lys."

She gestured with her fan to indicate a handsome gentleman on the far side of the room, next to the refreshment table. He wore olive green with striped trousers, reminding Lillet a bit of her friend, Prince Hiram. This man was in his mid-twenties, with a lean build and curling black hair worn long enough to brush past his collar. At the moment, he was looking through a quizzing-glass at the ice sculpture of a swan just taking flight that graced the table and making some remark that the laughing dandy next to him apparently found humorous.

"Is there something wrong?"

"No, it's just..." Lady Smithwick let out her breath in another sharp, frustrated sigh. "I gather that you are not familiar with Baron de Lys, Mistress Blan?"

"No, I'm not. Amoretta?"

"I'm not, either."

"I suppose that it goes to show how narrow the interests of our little society are. I'm sure that some of it has found its way into the broadsheets, but it's a reminder that not everyone is hanging on every detail of scandal and gossip."

Lillet gave her a sheepish grin.

"Well, I hate to admit it, but now I am hanging on the details. What did you mean, Lady Smithwick?"

The tension in the other woman's expression melted a little, and she even returned Lillet's smile with a small one of her own.

"Michel Ferrers, Baron de Lys, has acquired quite a reputation for himself."

"Michel Ferrers?" Amoretta spoke up. "Do you mean the poet, Lady Smithwick?"

"Ah, so then you have heard of him."

"Not really. But some of the other apprentices were talking about his work. It seems to be very popular, especially among the younger ladies. I haven't read any of it myself, but I gathered that his work was very Gothic, with doomed heroes struggling under the burden of old sins, but being dashing and romantic." She pursed her lips in confusion. "I don't understand why they seem to find that type of character appealing, though. He seems extremely unreliable, and too centered on momentary passion and infatuation to form a lasting love."

Now Lady Smithwick _did_ smile wholeheartedly.

"Oh, I like you," she said.

"Thank you," said Amoretta, her polite response prompting Lillet to giggle.

"What my wife is hinting at," Sir Warren spoke up, "is that de Lys, as perhaps you can guess from looking at him, cuts quite a dash in the more artistic set of Court Society. Not only is he lauded for his poetry—which is apparently genuinely good, though I have no ear for such things and the genre is no more to my taste than to Miss Virgine's—but he strives to emulate it in his own life."

"Poet, duellist, world traveler, and romantic figure," Lady Smithwick agreed. "He and his companions even took part in the Illyrian League revolution two years ago. As you might gather, the hearts of young ladies are often set aflutter by his charms." She glanced from Lillet to Amoretta and back, realizing that perhaps the two of them were not exactly connoisseurs of male attraction.

"He sounds like a man who's more in love with himself than with the ladies he courts," Lillet said. "Love as a poetic ideal, instead of a genuine emotion?"

"You have it exactly. And there have been a number of scandalous rumors. His name was linked to one of the Marassou cousins, who was sent back to the country five weeks into her debut Season, and to Lady Anheuser's niece Viviane, and to Arabella Lawson-Dewar, among others. Young, impressionable misses all, not women who are already out and would be expected to deal on an even level with a gentleman of his stamp."

"Rumor is not certainty, dear," her husband noted, "and he is still received everywhere."

Lady Smithwick sighed.

"I know; it's just that at an event in the honor of a young lady's debut..." She broke off and shook her head. "I have no idea if Lady Rowena even enjoys de Lys's poetry, but who can say? But do forgive me, Mistress Blan, Miss Virgine. I did not mean to burden you with my ill-mannered complaints."

"Not at all," Lillet said, then granted the older woman a sudden smile. "I know it probably isn't nice of me, but it's kind of exciting to share in Society..."

She left the sentence hanging, realizing that what she had been about to say didn't sound quite courteous, but Lady Smithwick was kind enough to return her smile.

"Gossip? Don't apologize; that's what it is, after all. I just remember when I made my debut eight years ago and fell head-over-heels for a dashing rake. I'm fortunate that I had a patient sister to give me good advice—and not give up on me when I throw a fit over being 'in love.' Without her, I'd likely have done something foolish and missed out on finding my Warren."

She slipped her free hand into her husband's, and he gave it a quick squeeze.

"I'm lucky, too, that I found Amoretta before any dashing rakes could come along," Lillet responded, and she and Lady Smithwick shared a look of satisfaction that could only be described as smug.

"Well," Sir Warren cut in, "it was a pleasure to meet you both, but I daresay that we must circulate before I lose any more of my reputation for rakish charm and am forever consigned to the reputation of a doting husband instead," he joked.

They parted politely, and Lillet was left with a surprisingly pleasant feeling. One thing about Court Society that she did like was the greater tolerance towards same-sex relationships she'd found there than among the lower classes. Permanent relationships of that sort were not always approved, since there tended to be a certain focus on bloodlines and the need for offspring to continue a lineage, but apart from direct lines of descent and certainly when it came to private affairs of the heart, it was generally accepted that love and desire did not always follow a rigid binary rule. The more puritanical Low Church movements tended to focus on the lower and middle classes, being a large part of what drove that intolerance, but even so Lillet still found it surprising that in the capital her relationship with Amoretta simply wasn't anywhere near as much of an issue as she'd once feared it might. Given that, she still tended to have warm feelings towards people who treated their affection as nothing out of the ordinary.

(The magicians at the Royal House of Magic sometimes gave her odd looks because Amoretta was a homunculus, particularly if they were unaware that Lillet had not been the one to create her, but that was a different issue altogether. Lillet herself would have been more than a little disturbed by a magician having a love affair with one of his or her own familiars!)

"They were nice," Amoretta summed it up plainly, without need for deeper analysis.

"Yes, that they were."

"You see?" Amoretta reached out and laid her cool hand on Lillet's bare shoulder. "Things are going to be fine."

For a while, it seemed as if Amoretta's words were going to be prophetic. The musicians struck up the first waltz, and Amoretta escorted Lillet out onto the floor. Perhaps unexpectedly, when they danced together it was Amoretta who generally led, and it was so this time, taking Lillet's hand in one of hers, the other resting on Lillet's hip. She guided Lillet through the steps of the dance, following the rhythm of the music as easily as she followed the words and melody of a new song. Amoretta loved to dance with Lillet, and because of it Lillet had come to enjoy the formal steps of the ballroom nearly as much as she liked the country dances of her home village.

Besides, it was fun in another way. Lillet was used to being the more active one of the pair, the one who had specific goals to pursue in her life. Generally, Amoretta was content to simply drift along in Lillet's wake, guided by her. She possessed her own will, certainly, but tended to express her strength more by resistance than by actively seeking something.

With the dance, however, it was different. Lillet was putting herself into Amoretta's hands, letting the homunculus guide her on their path together. It was a small thing, turning to and fro on the dance floor, the worst consequence being to bump into another couple and suffer a minor embarrassment. Yet it felt good, to be able to relax, to put her trust in her lover, and let the other woman take control.

Gentle pressure eased Lillet through another turn on the floor, guiding her steps, and the warmth of Amoretta's touch brought a thought to Lillet's mind: _Isn't her hand supposed to be higher?_ That was right, wasn't it? In the waltz, the lead's free hand was supposed to be at his or her partner's waist. Amoretta wouldn't have forgotten that, which meant that she had it lower on purpose. Lillet's thoughts went back to the carriage, the way Amoretta's hand had lingered on her knee, how her pelisse had happened to drift open to give Lillet a glimpse of her neckline, and she felt her lips curve into a smile. Amoretta was flirting with her, the sly minx!

Except..."sly minx" wasn't exactly what one thought of when considering Amoretta's character, was it? It wasn't that she was shy or prudish about her desires, of course, but rather that she didn't usually tease or cajole. She tended to be direct and straightforward in her advances.

_Although...this is a public place, after all. She might just not want to do anything more open before everyone's eyes._

The doubts had taken root, though, and the only thing that Lillet could think of was that holding her by the hip offered Amoretta more control over Lillet's leg by holding it directly. Which, in turn, made perfect sense if Lillet's dancing was in need of extra guidance. _Am I that bad at it, that she needs to compensate to keep me on track?_

If that was indeed the case, then it was working, because Lillet made no missteps as they continued the waltz to its completion, but it couldn't help but disturb the pleasure she'd been taking in it. And indeed, the nerves continued, so that not long into the next dance, a quadrille, she lost track of the complex figures and stepped on two different gentlemen's feet during the set. While she was certainly not the only person at the ball to make such a mistake, she was still mortified by her clumsiness.

Although she apologized profusely after the set, and neither victim of her shoes seemed to take offense (indeed, Cassius Kir just laughed and declared that "a dainty foot like yours could barely be noticed, compared to clodhoppers like mine!"), she still waited out the next set for fear that she'd bungle the delicate steps of the minuet. That, however, brought its own risks, for she was left looking longingly at where Amoretta danced the elegant figures with a handsome, silver-haired baron. When she decided to go to the refreshment table to distract herself, she ended up caught by Lady Rowena and another young lady slightly above Lillet's age with lustrous dark hair and glittering diamond-and-ruby jewelry.

"So, then, this is the famous Lillet Blan," the unknown said in a husky voice that suited her smoldering looks.

"I am, although I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure?"

"Allow me," Rowena said. "Lady Victorine Pétillant, this is Royal Magician Lillet Blan, a friend and colleague of my sister's. Lillet, this is Lady Victorine."

"Hello," Lillet said politely, though the 'famous' comment had rubbed her the wrong way. It bothered her when it was sincere, and as for when it wasn't—well!

"Dear little Rowena tells me that you're one of Emily's friends," Victorine said, a mildly fatuous statement since Rowena had literally stated that during her introduction. The significance seemed largely to be in the omission of the Livingston daughters' titles, implying friendly familiarity.

Lillet nodded.

"Yes, Lady Emily was a great help to me, assisting me in getting used to the chaos of life at Court, as well as working for the Palace. It's so different than being a student at Professor Gammel's Magic Academy."

"I see. But then again, that academy seems to be all the rage for gaining an entreé at Court these days."

"Oh, do you mean Ms. Opalneria?" Lillet's former professor had recently become engaged to the third Prince, Hiram, who'd previously been her student. Though Lillet wouldn't have been shocked to learn that Opalneria's family had been gentry or even nobility from her manner and speech...although that might just have been education and training, since Opalneria was over a century old. Lillet figured that even she herself might learn courtly ways over that much time.

"Indeed. Perhaps next Season's crop of debutantes shall forego worrying about their dressmaker's and instead set a fashion for grimoires."

"Well, it would give them a useful fallback if they weren't able to make a good marriage."

A tiny line formed between Victorine's eyebrows for just a moment before her forehead smoothed.

"Indeed, that would be one course of action, and certainly more interesting a fate than to be a governess or companion, or worse yet, to go into _trade_." She said the last word in the same tones as one would reserve for some kind of horrible and degrading form of torture, an attitude all too typical among the elegant nobility. The notion of having to _work_ for a living positively nauseated a number of them. "But then again, I suppose that a magician never needs to worry about marriage, or whatever relationship might suit her inclinations."

"Really? How's that?" Lillet was genuinely curious as to what she meant, given the example set by the tangled mess the magicians at the Silver Star Tower had made of their love lives.

"Well, if one is having trouble catching the eye of one's desired on her own, can't you simply..." She made an airy little gesture with one hand. "Take steps?"

Lillet caught on almost at once.

"Oh, you mean a love potion, like in the legend of Tristan and Isolde? She shook her head. "No, that isn't really possible. There are charms and enchantments that can create that kind of delusion over a short time, but the person is always very noticeably affected, since it's really just a form of magical enslavement. Those kind of enchantments are ferociously unethical as well; it's a perfect example of how magic doesn't have to be Sorcery to be evil." Charms of that type were inevitably Glamour; the stories of fey folk putting such an enchantment on human victims weren't entirely made up.

There were also magics of Glamour, Alchemy, and Sorcery alike to instill purely physical desire, but Lillet didn't really want to go into the topic of aphrodisiacs in front of Rowena, whom she didn't know well enough for bantering about sex. Particularly since that wasn't something Lillet often did at any time, with anyone.

"I see," Victorine pouted. "Then those stories of peasant girls going to hedge-witches for love charms are nothing but fantasy?"

"Oh, no, the stories are true enough. But most of the ones selling them are charlatans. Only a criminal magician would actually sell an enchantment like that, while tricksters play on the foolish and desperate in many ways. And even when a dishonest magician is willing to sell a love charm or potion, it never does what a naïve person of that sort is dreaming about anyway. They want true love and endless passion, not delusion. I'm glad, though, since a genuine way to magically induce love would cheapen the entire concept. Don't you agree?"

"Oh, yes," Rowena breathed enthusiastically. "Love is something pure and special; it should never be tainted by merely waving a wand and having it happen out of nowhere."

Lillet smiled at the girl.

"You sound like you've been in love yourself."

She'd meant it only as a friendly remark; after all, few people reach Rowena's age without having at least one significant crush, even if nothing came of it. Rowena, though, reacted almost as if she'd been accused of something, blushing furiously even as she seemed to shrink back behind Victorine's shoulder.

"What? Oh! Oh, no, it's n-nothing like that. It...It's just that true love is such a rare and priceless thing that it seems wrong to try and counterfeit it with magic. When two hearts are drawn together in a union of our very souls—"

Lillet glanced at Victorine, who rolled her eyes theatrically. She had a feeling that the noblewoman was not a believer in True Love. Having such a love of her own, Lillet felt a little more indulgent of Rowena's girlish glee.

The guest of honor seemed to realize that she'd gone a bit far in her rhapsodies and broke off, pressing her fingertips together. "Well, when marriages among our set are so often made for financial gain or social advancement, I just think it should be celebrated when real love comes along, that's all."

"I couldn't agree more," Lillet said. She wasn't fooled for an instant, of course, but there was really no point in twitting Rowena any further.

"Well, I should hope that you would," Victorine interjected, "since your magic cannot change that. At the very least, you're not a hypocrite about it."

"I'm...I'm sorry, Victorine," Rowena put in, and _that_ caught Lillet's attention. Why would _Rowena_ be sorry about what magic could or could not do?

The dark woman waved a hand airily, dismissing her companion's concern.

"Think nothing of it. If Miss Blan's reputation is to be believed—"

"Emily says that it absolutely is, that Miss Blan's talents in any of the fields of magic are superior to Master Freixenet's."

"—then it is as she says, simply impossible. I can hardly hold that against you."

With a few more years' experience of the social graces, Rowena would not have made her relief quite so obvious as she did. Lillet couldn't help but wonder why. She had a hard time believing that the two women were close friends; the age difference would have kept them apart before now, and there was little similar between the sophisticated, jaded Society lady and the innocent debutante. Well, other than a scandalous love affair, and Lillet caught not even a hint of that in the manner between them.

_And...was Lady Victorine really hinting around at the idea that she wanted me to make her a love charm, like I was a back-street amulet-seller instead of a Royal Magician?_

"In any event, that has been a most enlightening conversation, Miss Blan—no, you simply must allow me to call you Lillet—a most enlightening conversation indeed, but I am promised to Duke Kubanskaya for the next dance. I am sure you ladies appreciate that one does not keep a dashing red-haired gentleman waiting too long. After all, the only point in making him chase you is so that he appreciates the prize when you let him catch you," she said with a saucy smile. With a flick of her fan that was part wave, part regal gesture of dismissal, she sauntered off.

Lady Rowena was left looking nervously and Lillet, then back at the receding Victorine, then back at Lillet again.

"It was nice talking with you," she said, then scurried off, leaving Lillet wondering why she was so agitated.

 _It can't be the magic,_ she thought, _not for Mistress Livingston's sister._

She scurried off, leaving Lillet looking around for Amoretta, but before she could do so, she found herself all but hemmed in by three dowagers, including Countess Marassou, Lady Anheuser, and the wife of the Illyrian ambassador, all of whom were among the arbiters of social prestige this Season and exactly the people that Lillet needed to impress. She strove to do her best, but she still felt like a trout wriggling on a hook, as more than one barbed remark was clearly intended to trip her up and provoke a heated or ill-mannered response.

Lillet thought that she managed to do well enough, but in the end it was still a nerve-wracking experience, particularly as suggesting that the Dowager Countess would make a nice toad would not have been a suitably polite response (even if her squat, lumpy body, wide-set eyes, and heirloom rubies festooning her like warts made the comparison almost obvious). She could feel the perspiration making the back of her dress stick to her skin between the shoulder blades, and felt the desperate need to escape.

Thankfully, leaving the ballroom was no difficult feat. Not only were the terrace doors open, allowing guests to slip out into the gardens for a breath of fresh air or a quiet moment, but side doors were also left open in case it was necessary to answer a call of nature or to visit the withdrawing room to repair some element of one's wardrobe. Lillet made a discreet exit in that direction, then slipped around another corner. The servants were largely at work either in the ballroom or serving some need of the party, and so there was little chance of meeting anyone while wandering a little out of bounds. She stopped at the door of a pale, almost golden wood that matched the paneling, turned the brass handle, and stepped into the Livingstons' library.

The room was well-appointed and luxurious, with rows of shelves stacked high with books, many of their spines well-creased from use. The dim light, the smell of leather and dust, but most of all the quiet and absence of other people were soothing, so that the young magician found herself relaxing muscles across her shoulders that she didn't even realize she'd clenched. Lillet was just reaching for a volume of _Commentaries on the Archmage's Rebellion_ that she hadn't yet gotten to read, when her heart leapt into her throat at the click of the door-handle turning.


	4. Chapter Three

# Chapter Three

"Lillet?"

The sweet tone of Amoretta's voice caused Lillet to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Lillet, are you in there?"

"Here I am, Amoretta." Lillet stepped out of the shadow she had shrunk back into at the sound of someone's entry. Amoretta swung the door shut behind herself, the latch clicking into place.

"I thought I saw you come this way." She looked around herself. "Was there a book you wanted to borrow?"

Lillet shook her head.

"No, I just wanted to get away from the ballroom for a while." She smiled ruefully. "Between my bad dancing, Lady Rowena's friend, and the _grande dames_ of Society, I just needed a breath of air." She smiled playfully and ventured, "I would have said a breath of _fresh_ air, but I ended up in a slightly musty library."

Amoretta giggled and moved closer to Lillet, laying her fingers on her lover's arm.

"I wish you'd come to find me."

"I would have, but that was how I ended up cornered by the dowagers," Lillet admitted, "so this time I thought the better tactical move was to escape before something else went wrong."

"Lillet..."

She'd moved closer again, so that she was actually touching.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't stay with you."

Lillet shook her head.

"It's not your fault. In an event like this, couples circulate. If we stayed in each other's pockets the entire time, it would attract comment, and that would reflect badly on Mistress Livingston."

Amoretta's arms slipped around Lillet's waist from behind, and she leaned forward to rest her head on Lillet's shoulder. Her body was soft and warm.

"I'm glad, though."

"Of what?"

"Well, you did just say that the problem was that you were forced by circumstance to spend time separated from me. So, that means that what you really want is for us to be together. And that makes me very happy."

Her arms tightened around Lillet's waist, pulling them closer. Even through their gowns, Lillet could feel the press of Amoretta's breasts against her back, the curves of soft thighs against her bottom. Amoretta pressed a gentle kiss against the back of Lillet's neck, just above the ribbon of the silk choker. Her breath ticked the skin, and Lillet shivered, her body reacting to her lover's closeness.

_We're at a ball!_ she chided herself. _I shouldn't be thinking about..._

Images from earlier in the evening danced through her thoughts: Amoretta's fingertips brushing over her throat as she slid the choker into place, Amoretta's cloak falling open like petals of a flower opening to the morning sun of Lillet's gaze, Amoretta's palm cupping her hip, gently steering her.

Her breath caught in her throat.

"And, I'm really proud of you for going through this, Lillet."

"W-why?" She couldn't keep the hitch out of her voice, the highly inappropriate direction of her thoughts stubbornly refusing to be deflected.

"I know how much this makes you uncomfortable, being here in the face of Court Society."

"It's part of being a Royal Magician. This is my dream, after all, and I can't spend my entire time with my face in a grimoire." _Or between your thighs,_ Lillet's mind insisted upon adding.

"Mm-mm, that's not true."

"What?"

"You're not here out of duty. You're here out of kindness to Mistress Livingston, as an act of friendship, and that's much more important."

Her tone was fiercely earnest, at odds with the gentleness of her embrace.

"Amoretta, that's not—I mean, I owe her."

"And you think that's enough of a reason for you to put yourself through an uncomfortable and embarrassing evening," Amoretta returned at once. "Many people wouldn't do that, Lillet. You have a generous spirit." She kissed Lillet's neck again, softly.

"It isn't—"

Her lips tickled Lillet's skin again, moving higher, then again, curving around the right side of her neck.

"Yes, it is. Not everyone would do that, and of those who would, not every one of _them_ would do so without hesitation. You didn't want to come here, you absolutely would rather not and had no trouble saying so, but it never once crossed your mind to actually refuse the invitation."

Her lips found Lillet's jawline, gently kissing up along it, sending an electric tingle through her nerves.

"And that," she said—no, _breathed_ —into Lillet's ear, her breath tickling the delicate skin and drawing another shiver from the magician, "is part of why I love you so much."

Her lips then found the sensitive spot just behind the hinge of Lillet's jaw and kissed her there once, softly, before Amoretta's mouth fastened there and sucked gently.

"Ah!" Lillet cried, the contact sending an electric pulse along her nerves, her thighs clenching involuntarily at the attack on one of her sensitive spots. She jerked forward, pulling free of Amoretta's arms, and whirled to face her lover.

"Amoretta, what are you doing?" she exclaimed. If she had been curious before as to whether Amoretta was flirting with her, her doubts were now erased. Indeed, this went beyond flirting; she was all but making advances. Her gaze met Lillet's, and her crimson eyes were positively avid with desire.

"Isn't it obvious?"

She stepped towards Lillet, who backed away once again, only to come up against the bookshelf. Amoretta came in another step, stopping so that there was barely enough space between their bodies to slide a wisp of cloth through. She reached up and cupped Lillet's face between her palms.

"I want you."

Her skin was cool on Lillet's, the homunculus's body not exactly the same as a human's. It made Lillet all the more aware of her own warmth, of the flush coming into her cheeks.

She reached up, closing her gloved hands around Amoretta's wrists.

"Amoretta," she managed to say. Her tongue felt thick, and her mouth dry. "We can't...not here..."

"There's no one else here."

Lillet wanted to pull Amoretta's hands away, but her own arms seemed to have lost all their strength, and her knees trembled. Because she didn't _want_ to pull away, not really.

"We-we can't stay away from the ball for very long."

"But you," Amoretta said, "were getting a book for yourself, Lillet, and we both know that when you read, it's always for a very...long...time..."

She slid one fingertip down Lillet's cheek, past her throat, and down her chest to the top of the cleft between her breasts.

"Surely you could spend the same time on something more...socially stimulating?"

Her fingertip slid back up, drawing a tingling trail across Lillet's skin, pressing to the magician's lips, shushing her before she could make another protest.

And really, why would she want to?

She knew well enough that licentious behavior went on at Society parties. How much was shaped by time and place—a masquerade at Valentian Gardens could make a courtesan blanch, while a drawing-room musicale was not conducive to intimacy. At a ball like this, with such a crush of people, there would surely be more than one couple who slipped away into the garden or otherwise for a private moment.

Lillet had never done such a thing before. She had no mastery of the basic functions of a ball, of dancing and polite conversation, so how could she bring herself to do something so daring and risky?

Amoretta, it seemed, had confidence enough for them both.

She let her hand fall, slipped the other one free from Lillet's grasp, and took her lover by the hips, pressing Lillet's body back against the bookshelves, controlling her movements as she had on the dance floor. Amoretta leaned in, her body molding itself to the magician's, and captured Lillet's lips with her own. The first kiss was soft, almost gentle, as was the second, but the third was firmer, more insistent, urging Lillet on to more.

The fourth kiss won her surrender. Good sense, nerves, concern for where they were, all of it melted away before the clawing need Amoretta had awakened within her. She didn't just accept the kiss, but returned it, her mouth hard and hot on her lover's. Amoretta's lips urged Lillet's open, and her tongue flickered between them, a delicate, teasing taste.

Lillet took the lure; she couldn't help herself. Her mouth flowered open under Amoretta's, tongues darting, touching, caressing. The contrast was electric, pulsing through her body. Butterflies danced in her lower belly, her thighs trembled, her nipples drew up into hard, tight little points that ached as they scraped against the inside of her bodice with every movement.

Her arms came up, taking Amoretta into an embrace. One hand slid up her back, sliding over silk and then the softer touch of her bared neck. Her fingers burrowed into moonlight-pale hair, spreading to cup her head, tip it back so Lillet could urge her kisses on, hotter and deeper.

If this was in any was a duel, though, Amoretta was in no way ready to surrender mastery. Her hands were an irresistible force, keeping Lillet pinned against the bookshelves, and her thigh pushed up, parting Lillet's legs to press against the heat of her core.

"Ah!" Lillet gasped into Amoretta's mouth at the heated contact, her leg rubbing back and forth, driving hard against her. The homunculus kept it up, making Lillet continue to ride her thigh as she broke off the kiss, her lips trailing down over the point of Lillet's chin and below. They brushed across the carved amethyst in the choker before settling just below it in the hollow at the base of her throat. Her tongue swirled while she sucked lightly, working what she knew was another of Lillet's sensitive points. The magician tipped her head back, gasping out ragged breaths as the sensations seemed to spiral down through her, striking into the heat between her legs and building it higher, hotter. Lillet could feel herself growing wetter with need, Amoretta's thrusts against her just making her crave the direct contact of skin on skin all the more.

"Amoretta...please... I need..."

"Mm? What is it that you want, Lillet?"

_What's gotten into her this evening?_ Lillet thought. It wasn't like Amoretta to be so aggressive, at least not in a place like this...but she had to admit that it excited her.

"Touch me. Make love to me."

Amoretta's lips covered hers again, hard and demanding, and her hands fisted in the fabric of Lillet's gown, working it up Lillet's legs, until dress and petticoat were bundled at Lillet's waist. She broke the kiss again, making Lillet whimper as the searing heat of her lover's mouth was torn away.

"Hold it up for me."

Obediently, Lillet let go of Amoretta and took hold of the bundled skirts. The air from the empty library played across her exposed legs, cool with a slight bite to it, and Lillet shivered.

"Perfect."

Amoretta leaned in, pressing her body against Lillet's.

"I love you, Lillet."

Her hand pressed against Lillet's leg, just above the knee, and slid up as she straightened herself up, sliding over the stockinged thigh, past the garter, onto the bare flesh above. Her nails traced patterns across Lillet's inner thighs, sending tingles of fire trailing in their wake.

"Amoretta, I need you..."

Amoretta cupped her, squeezed gently, feeling the heat of her. The homunculus's fingers played along Lillet's nether lips, parting them, feeling the slippery wetness seeping from her. Amoretta moved the heel of her hand in small circles, pressing down, grinding over the taut, swollen bud, sending hot surges up through her, stabbing pulses of pleasure that drew soft cries from Lillet.

Amoretta's mouth found Lillet's throat as she continued to rub and stroke, nibbling lightly along Lillet's collarbone. She pushed two fingers just within Lillet's outer lips, playing just at her entrance and sending surges of pleasure up within her. Lillet's knees trembled; a moan escaped her as Amoretta pushed just the tips of her fingers inside her, carefully opening her. She moved them gently, several times in and out, then withdrew her hand, drawing a shiver from Lillet with the sudden sensation of emptiness.

Breaking off her kisses, Amoretta brought her hand up between their faces, barely an inch from each, so that Lillet could see how her fluids coating Amoretta's fingertips glistened in the lamplight, could smell the musky sweetness of her own arousal. Amoretta brought her index finger to her lips and slowly, tantalizingly swirled her tongue around it, then closed her mouth around it and sucked it clean. She then brushed her middle finger around Lillet's mouth, painting her lips with her own taste, before kissing her again, long and hot.

It was a rare thing for Amoretta to be like this, teasing and playful, yet demanding at the same time. Indeed, the intensity was the more usual part of it; it was, after all, utterly alien to the gorgeous homunculus's nature to hide or be reluctant to share her feelings, and that extended just as fully to physical desire as it did anything. Now, Lillet herself could tease and play well enough when they were alone together, so perhaps Amoretta was just thinking that was what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the other goose.

Whatever the reason, it was working. Lillet was all but sobbing with need by the time Amoretta broke the kiss again. Any hint of reluctance was long gone. Time and place didn't matter a bit any more, and the only thing keeping her from seizing her lover, tearing the dress from her body, and slaking the craving that possessed her was the knowledge that Amoretta wasn't about to allow that until she was fully ready for it.

She cupped Lillet's face between her hands.

"That was delicious," she all but _purred,_ "but now I want more than just a taste."

She let her hands travel down Lillet's body, passing along her throat, her shoulders, cupping the fullness of her breasts, sliding along her belly even as she herself sank to her knees. Her hands settled on Lillet's thighs, urging them farther apart, making Lillet shift her stance to give Amoretta better access. When she had her beloved exactly where she wanted, she slid her hands up Lillet's thighs towards her center. She traced her fingertips up and down the creases framing her labia, then moved them in tight circles, causing Lillet's lips to flutter open and closed, indirectly teasing the swollen point of Lillet's clit.

Only then did Amoretta at last spread her open and run her tongue the length of her, a long, langorous taste, gliding from bottom to top, swirling against the engorged bud, and then back down again. The contact was electric, drawing a shuddering gasp from Lillet. She took another couple of long, slow licks, clearly savoring Lillet's taste, even working the tip of her tongue into Lillet's channel, flicking in and out. Amoretta nibbled gently, playfully at Lillet's inner lips, using only her own lips, then went back to exploring every fold and surface with her tongue.

It was _maddening._

Amoretta knew every spot of Lillet's body well, how Lillet reacted, and how to best build the fire within her until Lillet was canting her hips forward in an agony of need, seeking out more contact than her lover's teasing ministrations afforded. She knotted her fists in the bunched-up fabric of her dress, trying her best to keep from reaching out and taking, even if she wondered if that was Amoretta's game, to slowly tease Lillet to the point where desire became an irresistible frenzy.

Then, at last, when Lillet felt as if she was going mad, Amoretta had mercy upon her and captured the throbbing center of her pleasure between her lips, sucking firmly while she lashed it with her tongue. Electric heat struck through Lillet's body; her mind swam. Again and again Amoretta worked at her clitoris, no longer teasing or playing but driving her lover's pleasure onward, higher and higher. Lillet's breath came in shuddering, mewling gasps and whimpering cries; she felt the fluttering of her inner walls as the sensations grew too strong to resist, until...

_"Ah!"_

She bit down on her lip, stifling all but the first gasping cry as the wave crashed through and over her, all her nerves seeming to come alive at once, singing to her. Amoretta kept at her, her tongue stabbing, stroking, keeping Lillet trembling on the summit as a second surge of delight cascaded through her on the heels of the first until she finally came down from the heights.

Amoretta nuzzled playfully against the damp, golden curls, then smiled up at Lillet.

"Do you feel better now?"

Lillet's eyes widened in surprise. She opened her mouth to respond, but an aftershock of her climax shuddered through her and her knees buckled. She let go of her dress and half-caught herself on the shelf, so that she sagged to the floor instead of toppling over onto Amoretta. The homunculus's arms came up around her, cradling her while she trembled, and Lillet returned the embrace, clinging tightly to her lover.

"Do I feel better?" she repeated Amoretta's question. "Well, I'm not sure that I'll be able to walk for a while without wobbling around like a newborn calf, but so long as I'm not expected for the next dance, you were wonderful, little love."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it, but that isn't what I meant."

"Oh?"

Amoretta gently stroked Lillet's back.

"You were upset before, so I hoped this made you feel better."

"I have to admit that I'm much more relaxed."

Though Lillet's voice was wry, almost teasing, Amoretta beamed. "Oh, I'm glad!"

"Amoretta, wait, are you saying you made love to me just to relax me? That isn't a good reason to do that."

"Why not? Isn't the entire point of lovemaking for two people to feel good together?"

"But if you didn't want—"

" _Lillet_ ," Amoretta cut her off sternly. She took the magician's hand in hers and guided it to her breast. "Does this feel like I don't want you?" The outline of her nipple, taut and erect, was plain to feel against Lillet's fingertips. "Does this?" She brought Lillet's hand down, pressed it between her legs. Even through the dress and petticoats, the heat of her seemed almost searing next to the usual coolness of her flesh.

"No; no, it doesn't."

Amoretta smiled.

"Then don't be so silly, Lillet."

She rose to her feet, still holding Lillet's hand in hers, and helped Lillet to stand up as well. Smiling brightly, she took a couple of steps towards the door.

"Shall we return to the ballroom?"

Lillet stopped walking, bringing Amoretta to a halt as well.

"No, not just yet, I think."

"But why?"

Lillet pulled, bringing Amoretta swinging back to her, and brought up her free left hand to cup Amoretta's face.

"Because there's still more to do here."

"Mm?"

Lillet bent her head and captured Amoretta's lips with her own. They were slick and wet still, and once again Lillet could taste herself on her lover's lips. It felt absurdly decadent to her, like she'd branded Amoretta with her scent, and the thought sent a little tickle of lust trailing down through her lower belly.

Her satin-gloved fingers caressed Amoretta's cheek, tracing down her jawline.

"Mm-hm. There's you," she murmured, letting her mouth brush over Amoretta's.

"No, but I wanted to pleasure you."

"And you did. But, Amoretta, if you don't want me to have these kinds of thoughts—" She interrupted herself by kissing Amoretta again. "—then you shouldn't take the time—" _Kiss._ "—to show me how aroused—" _Kiss._ "—you are. And especially not—" _Kiss._ "—when you've taken such pains to seduce me. So when—" _Kiss._ "—you take the time and trouble to make me crave you like this—" _Kiss._ "—then you should be prepared to accept the consequences."

Her tongue drove between Amoretta's lips, plundering the other girl's mouth. Unlike when Amoretta had been the seducer, though, there was no hesitation or concern on the recipient's part; she returned the kiss at once, her arms coming up to encircle Lillet's neck and hold her close. Not that Lillet had expected any argument; it would have been quite out of character for Amoretta to react in any other way when they were both eager and excited.

It was called "making love" for a reason, after all.

Lillet broke the kiss long enough to glance around the library. Spotting what she needed, she captured Amoretta's lips again, and started to back her up, almost waltzing her back across the floor until the edge of a broad mahogany table bumped the back of Amoretta's thighs. It took only a slight push and Amoretta was sitting on the table, before Lillet tipped her back so she stretched out diagonally, right leg dangling over the side.

Amoretta looked up at her and smiled. There was desire in it, but it wasn't the same as before. Then, she had been teasing, tempting, trying to draw Lillet out of her shell. That smile had been as much to lure, to call out to Lillet's primal needs. It had held _purpose_. This smile, by contrast, had none; it was open, eager, and accepting, simply showing Amoretta's happiness at being the object of Lillet's love and passion alike. It made Lillet's heart melt all over again at how blessed she felt.

She traced her fingers over the outline of Amoretta's mouth, and her lover captured one, nibbling softly. Freed, the hand slid down Amoretta's chin and throat to her neckline and dipped inside, sliding across the bare skin beneath. Lillet tugged down at Amoretta's décolletage, lifting her breasts free, glad that she hadn't worn a lace _fichu_ to get in the way. The neckline of her dress now served to lift and support her breasts from beneath, accenting their fullness, and Lillet bent her head and took a nipple between her lips.

Knowing what Amoretta liked, Lillet squeezed and stroked her lover's breasts while she suckled, flicking her tongue across the very tip of the nipple then gently teasing the stiff point between her teeth. She went back and forth, making sure to give each one equal attention, then pushed Amoretta's breasts up and together so she could take both peaks into her mouth at once. Amoretta rolled her head from side to side on the table, high, sighing moans escaping her. Once her hand lifted, reached for Lillet's head to clutch it to her breast, but pulled back at the last moment, realizing that Lillet's hairdo would be ruined so she was forced to content herself with encouraging Lillet on with her voice.

Lillet, though, had noticed what Amoretta was doing and decided that it meant that it was time to give her something more. Releasing her breasts, she reached down and pulled up Amoretta's dress, lifting her legs so that she could pull the bottom part underneath her.

"It's too bad that ball gowns don't have shorter skirts," Lillet growled while fighting to access.

Her fingers found Amoretta's bared vulva. The homunculus had no body hair at all, and the silken-soft flesh was slippery from her seeping nectar. Lillet could have teased her more, like Amoretta had done to her, but she didn't want to play. She wanted to drive Amoretta wild, take her hard and fast and see her writhing beneath her, and she had a good idea that given how excited Amoretta was right now that was exactly what she wanted, too. Lillet pressed two fingers down onto her clit, rubbing hard in quick, tight circles. As Amoretta began to gasp and cry in time with her caresses, Lillet stepped up to the edge of the table, hoisting her own skirts with her free hand and straddling the leg Amoretta had dangling off the side so she could mount her, bracing her left hand against the tabletop while she rode Amoretta's leg.

"Oh! Lillet, please, I need...I need..." Amoretta whimpered, crying gasps punctuating her words.

"I know, little love," Lillet said, and slid her hand down, first and third fingers spreading her lover open while Lillet drove her middle finger into Amoretta's channel all the way to the knuckle. She stroked into her lover, pumping, driving into her depths. Amoretta loved being penetrated, considerably more than Lillet herself did, and she reacted at once, powerfully; she cried out and thrust her hips up off the table, ramming herself up against Lillet's hand.

"Ah! Yesss..."

Amoretta seized Lillet's bottom, thrusting her right leg up against her core, urging Lillet on to ride her faster, more furiously. Lillet gasped as she ground down harder, and matched the sudden burst by adding a second finger to the first.

"Lillet—ah, Lillet, that feels so good!"

Lillet could feel the reflexive clenching down on her hand with every stroke, the way Amoretta thrust back at her. Her own breath was coming faster and faster; the muscles in her inner thighs trembled and it was hard to keep her feet steady. Her eyes met Amoretta's, shining bright even through a haze of desire and passion.

"Amoretta—"

Their bodies rocked together, perspiration trickling down Lillet's forehead even in the cool room.

"Let's...let's come together, Lillet."

Breathless, Lillet nodded. She twisted her hand, bringing her thumb around and settling it down over Amoretta's nub, rubbing hard, keeping the pressure on as it seemed to shrink back from her as Amoretta grew nearer and nearer to completion. Lillet ground herself down harder, Amoretta's fingers convulsively digging into her flesh—

—until Lillet dove forward, crushing her open mouth to Amoretta's, their mutual cries drowning themselves out against each other's lips, bodies arching against one another, drawing bowstring-tight, Amoretta's core fluttering madly around Lillet's hand as they were both swept away.

For a long time they lay still, breathing heavily as they came back to themselves. Lillet's body felt loose and limp, like a cat napping in a sunbeam. The lazy thought caught at her imagination and she purred against Amoretta's ear, the tickling vibration making her lover giggle.

"That was lovely, darling," Lillet said.

Amoretta turned her head so that she could look into Lillet's eyes.

"Thank you." She obviously meant much more than just for the compliment.

"I love you so much."

"Mmm. I love you too, Lillet."

"I suppose that we have to get back to the ball now. Unless we're planning to make for a somewhat curious table ornament for the Livingstons?"

"Well, lying in your arms forever isn't a particularly awful fate," Amoretta decided, "but yes, I suppose that we should get up."

Regretfully, they disentangled themselves from one another and got back to their feet, straightening and smoothing their disarranged clothing. Lillet took a handkerchief from her reticule and blotted perspiration from her face and neck.

"I'm glad that I wore black gloves instead of white or lilac," she said, inspecting her right hand. "The stains won't show. I'll just have to remember that if someone wants to bow over my hand and kiss it to offer them my left." She held her fingertips under her nose and inhaled, then gave Amoretta a wicked smile. "I prefer to save this particular perfume for myself alone."

Amoretta blushed, a delicate rose color just brushing her cheeks.

"Why didn't you take your glove off first, Lillet?"

The ingenuous question drew a chuckle from her lover.

"Well, I have to say, you're more than a little bit distracting." She reached out and tapped Amoretta on the nose, which made her blush deepen.

"I'm glad, though," the homunculus told her, then leaned over and kissed her cheek. "It makes me happy that I'm able to distract you."

"Well, then, you should be _very_ happy." Practicalities then reasserted themselves. "Is my hair all right?"

"Mm-hm. I don't think mine is, though."

"No, but it's easy enough to fix. Turn around." Amoretta complied, and Lillet plucked out the ornamental comb that secured the base of her ponytail. She then gathered up the ash-blonde waterfall, letting the newly freed strands together with those that had previously escaped slide over and between her gloved fingers before gathering them all up again, twisting them together, and inserting the comb to hold the ponytail once more in place. "There you are; good as new!" She pressed a quick kiss to the back of Amoretta's head, drawing in the sweet floral scent of the hair-rinse she used.

"Thank you, Lillet."

"Well, since I had so much fun helping you disarrange it, it's only fair that I help put it back in place. And now, shall we beard the dragons of Society in their den?"

Grinning, she offered Amoretta her arm, and they slipped from the library on their way back to the ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For any reader who may have noticed the curious absence of drawers or any similar underwear, I may note that ladies did not start wearing such undergarments until the early 19th century, when pantalettes (a kind of legging not unlike the bloomer-type garments Lillet wears under her short skirt in-game, only crotchless) came into vogue. So in this case, there's nothing particularly unusual or risque about Lillet and Amoretta "going commando" in this circumstance; that's just the fashion of the society in which they live.


	5. Chapter Four

# Chapter Four

Amoretta's prediction was accurate, Lillet found much to her relief upon their return to the ballroom. Though they'd been gone for more than half an hour at least, not only was their return unnoticed but so far as she could tell, their absence had not been remarked upon, either. Simply put, in a lavish affair like this, with hundreds of guests, there was no way to keep track of everyone in the crowd. The only one likely to notice was someone specifically looking for one or both of them, which was unlikely.

_One of the advantages,_ Lillet thought, with a warm smile and a glance at Amoretta, _with carrying on a love affair with the person I'm actually with instead of cheating. Fidelity wasn't just morally right, it was also convenient!_

A lively Albionese reel had just been struck, and Lillet extended her hand to her beloved.

"Shall we?"

"I thought you didn't like these country dances?"

"Well, not a lot, but they do provide an excellent excuse for rumpled skirts. And if you're going to have such good ideas for enjoying the ball, I can at least help to think up the alibi." She tossed Amoretta a saucy wink, and was rewarded with a beaming smile. Knowing Amoretta as she did, she thought there was a good chance it _was_ Lillet's enjoyment that had prompted Amoretta's.

What was more, Lillet realized as she joined the line and the dance began, she found that she was enjoying herself. Maybe the entire point was that she wasn't focusing on the dance as a dance but as something else, something that was achieved even if she had two left feet and flailing elbows, but she found that she didn't miss a single step or movement through not just the reel but the next dance (done in square figures, with Lillet partnered by Derek Marassou and Amoretta by, of all people, Baron de Lys) and the one after (where Amoretta danced with Mistress Livingston and Lillet with Lady Emily's current beau). Indeed, Lillet couldn't remember having as much fun on the ball floor since the first time Amoretta had inveigled her into dancing with her in public.

"I'm glad to see you having fun," Mistress Livingston told her as the four of them retired from the floor after the set.

"Ah," her escort chimed in, "I gather this means that Mistress Blan, like you, Emily, prefers to immerse herself in arcana than to capture the hearts of all the eligible gentlemen and make the debutantes claw their eyes out in jealousy?" Philippe, the Count de Trivento's heir, was a moustached gentleman in his early thirties.

"Well, I already have one heart, so I don't need eligible gentlemen, and regenerating eyes would be really advanced and difficult magic. I think only really high-level Sorcery could reliably accomplish it. It's too outside the realm of natural healing for Glamour. Maybe Alchemy might do it?" She glanced curiously at Mistress Livingston, who cupped her chin, considering the question. De Trivento laughed, then, breaking up the impending discussion.

"Yes, I can see why Emily likes you, Mistress Blan."

Blushing, Mistress Livingston said, "Now, Philippe, Lillet isn't anywhere near so bad as I am."

"Ah, but you have being a lady to distract you from your magical practice," Lillet pointed out. "I'm only a magician, so I can lurk in the lab full-time."

Amoretta cleared her throat.

"...Presuming that I don't neglect family, loved ones, or my own health while doing it," Lillet finished up.

"There's always something so much more interesting to do than eat!" Mistress Livingston protested, making the others chuckle.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to get some air," Lillet said, briskly fanning herself. "Fashion is definitely kinder to the gentlemen when it comes to dance attire."

"At least we don't have to wear those awful Rouge Islander hoop skirts," Emily pointed out.

"Ah, yes," said her beau. "The Queen herself put her foot down on that one. Gossip has it her exact words were, 'If the dressmakers want to see me in that, they had best raise an army and start a coup.'"

"I've always thought Her Majesty was a woman of good taste," Lillet observed. Still smiling, the couples separated, Emily and Philippe to seek out their next dance partners and Lillet and Amoretta to head for the terrace.

The night air was fairly cool; it was late spring and while the capital was flirting with summer weather during the day it had not settled in yet, leaving the evenings still with the faint hint of winter past. The heaviness of spring humidity had started to fade as well, leaving things definitely more comfortable compared to the press of bodies in the ballroom. Lillet and Amoretta were not at all the only people to take advantage of the open doors; there were several dozen others taking the air from what Lillet could see, either on the broad flagstones of the terrace or out in the garden. The magician and her lover walked to the edge of the terrace to stand at the low marble balustrade that ringed it, looking out into the garden, and Lillet slipped an arm around Amoretta's slender waist to hold her close.

Light strains of music drifted out from the ballroom, a stately dance slower and more formal than the country dances they'd just finished; Lillet thought the melody was quite appropriate for just standing quietly. A sweet perfume drifted out of the garden, revealing that the Livingstons' gardeners had mixed in night-blooming flowers with the day-blooming ones. Lillet found it much more pleasant than the scents and colognes worn by the ball guests.

She let out a long, happy sigh. Amoretta wriggled, snuggling up next to her as if trying to burrow right through their clothes. She was like that in bed as well, trying to get as close as possible while they slept, to the point that she'd accidentally snuggled Lillet right out onto the floor more than once. Though it could be annoying, it was also comforting to Lillet, the constant search for closeness between them.

"Do you know, Amoretta, I'm really glad that I came here tonight after all."

"Oh? I'm glad to hear it, but why is that?"

"Because I was able to get a little bit closer to you."

Amoretta's eyes widened for a moment, but then she beamed and cuddled up even more firmly into Lillet's embrace. Lillet giggled at the carefree response.

"I think I know why Grimalkin likes you so much, little love; you're almost like a big cat yourself the way you purr."

"Oh, you."

Lillet was just thinking of another sweet nothing to murmur when her attention was distracted by two people slipping out into the garden off the steps at the side of the terrace. It wouldn't have particularly caught her eye but for the fact that they were clinging to the shadows at the edge of the path. There were reasons why a couple might be discreet about being seen, mostly centered around the kind of encounter Lillet and Amoretta had shared in the library, and Lillet chuckled.

"I guess you aren't the only one to think of providing your own private entertainment tonight," she said, nodding towards the couple.

"Oh, do you think that is what they're doing?"

"Well, it's the first thing I thought of as to why two ball guests would be so careful to keep to the shadows. If they were just going for an innocent stroll they could just openly walk out along the path. But if they were to walk off and not return for an extended period, well, then everyone would come to the scandalous conclusion." Lillet slid her hand up along Amoretta's arm, her gloved fingers curling under to lazily trace patterns across Amoretta's palm. Amoretta giggled, making Lillet think at first that she was ticklish, but that wasn't it.

"I would never have thought they were the type."

"You could see who it was? I didn't know that you had enhanced night-vision."

"I don't. I just saw them on the far end of the terrace when we came out, so I know who it was."

"I see." And Lillet did; Amoretta's memory was an amazing instrument that could take in a scene at all but a glance and be able to remember the details with remarkable accuracy and precision. "I know it's just shameless curiosity, but who were they?"

"Sir Warren and Lady Smithwick." Amoretta smiled. "I think it's nice that a married couple would still have passion for each other after many years together."

Lillet chuckled.

"I know what you mean. It was plain that they were in love, but that's not the same as getting the urge to slip off into the bushes because you can't stand to keep your hands off the one you love for one moment longer." Her arm tightened around Amoretta, an unconscious movement she didn't even realize she was making. "That every time their lips move they pull you like wine to a drunkard, every rise and fall of her breasts make your hands burn to touch them, every time her dress clings to her legs makes you think of how they'd feel wrapped around you."

She'd drifted from gender-neutral pronouns to the feminine, and as she talked the images in her mind shifted from abstract thoughts about what the Smithwicks were feeling to very specific and personal images of Amoretta, pale skin glowing in the moonlight, her dress pooled at her feet, back pressed against a tree, one leg coiled around Lillet's waist while the magician's fingers plundered her depths. She felt the hot, sharp clench between her thighs that told her it didn't matter that it was scarcely an hour since they'd left the library, that the urge to slip off into the bushes was not confined to the Smithwicks.

Nor, it seemed, was she alone in that. Amoretta's left hand, the one pressed between their bodies, had settled atop Lillet's thigh. She squeezed gently, then let it slide over until she settled it just _there_. Lillet's fingers twined with those of Amoretta's other hand, and she bit her lip to stifle a gasp as Amoretta cupped her, squeezing.

"These Society balls can go on until three o'clock sometimes, can't they?" Amoretta asked. "I think that would be an awfully long time to wait."

"Three o'clock? I'm not sure I could hold back for five minutes."

They looked into each other's eyes, the heat passing back and forth between them seeming to redouble every moment.

"Then, why don't we follow the Smithwicks' lead?" Amoretta suggested, indicating the garden with a tip of her head.

"Well, it does seem sensible to be guided by the example of those more experienced in the ways of Court Society," Lillet agreed, anticipation setting flutters alight in her belly. Again the image came to her of Amoretta's sleekly curved body shining pearlescent in the moonlight, though practically she knew that wouldn't be possible, not out here.

"We'll have to be careful, though," she said. "For them, it would just be embarrassing to be caught, but for us..."

Amoretta nodded.

"The potential scandal. I understand." She paused, then said in a tiny, hesitant voice, "Do you think we shouldn't risk it? We were lucky enough not to be caught the first time. Maybe it would be wiser to restrain ourselves?"

Wiser? It probably was, when weighed dispassionately. Though the consequences would be purely social, without the threat of outraged spouses or families that would attend an adulterous affair, those consequences would reflect badly on the Royal House of Magic as well as the Livingstons, not just Lillet and Amoretta themselves. In the balance, that risk—however slight—was not worth one tryst in the open air.

But they were not dispassionate in their judgment. Indeed, they were two young women in the claws of passion. And how much more tempting was it to give in to that desire when they were with the one they loved, who craved them just as much, the only one they were promised to and only the time and place to say that they shouldn't. Indeed, the idea of it, of making love to Amoretta while the highest in the land carried out a different kind of dance scarcely fifty yards away just made it seem more exciting, more tempting for that hint of wickedness.

And though Amoretta had suggested restraint, it was plain from her expression that she, too wanted no part of prudence in this. Lillet canted her hips forward, pressing herself against Amoretta's palm, and was rewarded with another urgent caress that made her knees tremble.

"If we go back inside now," she said, and in the moment meant every word, "I'll probably disgrace us both the next time I hold you in my arms for a dance."

"A quiet garden bower would be more prudent than the middle of the ballroom floor," Amoretta agreed. Her lips were slightly parted, and it was all Lillet could do to keep from crushing her mouth to her lover's right there on the terrace, in full view of anyone else that happened to glance their way.

"We'll need to be careful, though," Lillet said. "We'll leave the terrace separately, at different times. You go first, from this side, and I'll wander over to the other end of the terrace and take the stairs down from there after a few minutes. We'll meet on the far side of the fountain, where there's too much shadow to see anyone clearly, then find a spot among the trees, out of sight."

"All right." It was with aching reluctance they parted, the only reason it was even bearable that they would be meeting up again soon. The minutes crept by painfully, and Lillet was very glad that none of the people she passed on the terrace attempted to strike up a conversation. But too, it was good that they took no particular notice of her; it made it less likely that they'd remember what she'd been doing later, assuming that they didn't have Amoretta's near-perfect memory. Trying not to give any sense of purpose to her movements, Lillet casually strolled down the terrace steps.

As was suitable for a marchioness's town mansion, the gardens at Glenmorrow House were both elaborate and large, stretching out at least seventy yards back from the house before reaching the estate wall. The central core was broad and open with banks of flowers and shrubs so it could be drenched by the sun, but the garden was ringed by a layer of flowering trees, which provided not only beauty of their own but an extra level of isolation from the sights and sounds of the capital.

A trysting couple could find plenty of concealment within the trees and hedges for stolen kisses or considerably more, and as Lillet passed through the gardens she was made aware that the Smithwicks were not the first to give in to licentious temptation: light, feminine laughter came from one direction, a man's muffled groans of pleasure from another. There were others of more innocent purpose, as well; here two gentlemen stood smoking cigars and talking, while there a middle-aged couple looked up at a tree whose white flowers seemed to gleam in the moonlight. Lillet licked her lips, reminded of her vision of Amoretta.

_At least_ , she thought as she rounded the central fountain, _it's not really unexpected that we're doing this_. After all, there were four free-standing lampposts of wrought iron in the garden, but only the two nearer the house had been lit, mute evidence of the tacit understanding that indulgence at the revels for some would be sexual, and that so long as discretion was maintained no one would complain of it.

Amoretta was waiting just beyond the back left lamppost and Lillet went to her side quickly. They caught each other's hands and shared a kiss of longing, a bit indiscreet if anyone was looking their way, but their faces would be in shadow, irregardless. Tongues brushed for just an instant, confirming their shared interest, then they broke the kiss and slipped towards the trees.

Moonlight filtering down through the branches left them just enough light to see by, the tree-trunks darker patches against the gray. They pressed in deeper, making sure that they had cover enough to remain unseen by anyone else in the garden. Amoretta reached for Lillet the instant they stopped, kissing her hard and deep.

Like in the library, the homunculus took the lead, but this was no seduction or gentle teasing. Her kisses were fierce and demanding, her hands almost rough as they roamed over Lillet's body, freed the magician's breasts from her décolletage, tugging at the nipples and drawing a sharp gasp. She didn't always like to be handled like that, but Amoretta had correctly read Lillet's mood, recognized that in the frustrated intensity of her passion Lillet wanted, needed it hot, hard, and fierce, to take and be taken. It was all she could do not to simply rip the dress from Amoretta's body, something both women seemed to share as their hands fisted in cloth, pulling their bodies hard against each other while their mouths continued to plunder and devour one another. And it was Lillet who found herself being thrust up against a tree, her skirts hauled up and bunched at her waist.

Amoretta was just urging her thighs apart with her hand while she bent her head to Lillet's breasts when the rustling of someone passing through the underbrush burst through their consciousness like a bucket of cold water had been dashed over them. Quickly, they ducked around behind the tree, Lillet frantically tidying her clothing in case she was spotted.

"We should have come out here separately," a man's voice complained. "If we're seen..."

"Do you know this garden well enough to pick out a particular spot among the trees? I don't. Relax, Michel. We left the ballroom separately, so no one will think we're slinking off together."

The second voice was a woman's, but more than that, Lillet was surprised to realize that she recognized it. Slowly, so that she wouldn't make a sudden movement that might catch the eye, she peeked out from her hiding place. Though it was too shadowy to see well, she was still able to see enough to verify that the woman was Lady Victorine Pétillant. What was more, now that she'd looked, she could identify the man as well; it was the Baron de Lys.

Lillet glanced at Amoretta in confusion. Her impression of Lady Victorine had been of a female equivalent of the kind of player Lady Smithwick had said de Lys was. She wasn't at all surprised that either of them might have slipped off to a garden rendezvous: indeed, while the thought of making love somewhere were she shouldn't gave Lillet a bit of a naughty thrill, someone like the Baron or Lady Victorine would probably revel in it. The surprise was that they were there with each other; in Lillet's admittedly limited experience that kind of person usually wasn't attracted to someone that similar to themselves. She couldn't see, for example, Bartido Ballentyne having a love affair with Kelce Avaleda. _Or no, maybe I could. Those two are a lot less...predatory than Lady Victorine and de Lys seem_.

"Which we aren't?"

Lady Victorine's lips curled into a lazy smile.

"Aren't we?"

She reached out, took his wrists, and pulled herself against him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, her lips opened, and she arched her neck up so that her mouth captured his in a fierce kiss. It was hot and deep, mouths moving, tongues dueling wetly, and Amoretta tugged on Lillet's sleeve.

"We should go," she mouthed against Lillet's ear.

"Uh-huh," Lillet agreed. She didn't want to play voyeur to someone else's lovemaking; she wanted to find some privacy so she and Amoretta could enjoy their own! They'd actually started to slip away when de Lys and Lady Victorine broke off the kiss, forcing Lillet and Amoretta to duck back into hiding just before they were seen.

"Mmm, maybe I shouldn't have done that. After all, you _are_ an engaged man."

De Lys chuckled dryly.

"I don't recall that being a particular concern of yours with any of your other conquests, dear Victorine."

"Ah, but this time is different. After all, I am aiding in the elopement, am I not? It seems quite the conflict of interest."

Lillet glanced in surprise at Amoretta. It seemed as if her instincts had been correct after all, and this was _not_ just an amorous couple's tryst, but a different kind of relationship altogether.

De Lys smiled.

"And I do thank you."

"Don't think I won't collect some day. Little Rowena was positively terrified that I was going to back out when Mistress Blan put me off. The idea of it, a _witch_ standing there and lecturing me about _ethics_ like she was as pure as the driven snow! It's too bad that she's no one, else you could have a go at her instead. I'd enjoy seeing that moral hauteur melt under the right hand."

The baron's smile widened, and he laughed at Lady Victorine's pique.

"In that case, you had best hope that you did not burn all your bridges with her."

"Eh?"

"Your observational skills must be slipping, if you hadn't noticed that judging from her current companion, if either of us were to attempt to seduce Mistress Blan, you would have the better chance."

Lady Victorine looked surprised for a second.

"Really? She didn't give any indication."

"Meaning that she didn't immediately succumb to your beauty?"

Lillet winked at Amoretta, who gave a warm smile back. It wasn't very hard to guess that Lady Victorine was used to appreciative glances and outright leers, and basked in the impact that her looks had on others. For her part, even had Lillet not already have given her heart to another, she'd sooner have mated with a snake than the arrogant beauty.

"Fah! It hardly matters. Even if I felt inclined to indulge in such variety it would hardly be with that _farouche_ girl."

"Be careful, Victorine; green isn't your best color, whether it be with envy or just the skin of a frog."

Lillet had to bite her lip to suppress a giggle.

"The more important question is, what did you tell Rowena?"

"Oh, never fear, Michel; all is well there. I assured her at once that she had done all I asked and that I could hardly blame her for what Mistress Blan said...which means that I'll be counting on you to properly compensate me for my help. Don't think that _you_ won't owe me, particularly as I'm helping you see your way to discharging the _rest_ of your debts."

"I did say that I would already, Victorine. A favor for a favor, in equal measure. But that's something for the future, and I'm concerned with the now."

"And you want to know what I, your lovely go-between, has to say. Fine, to present business it is."

"You've arranged for your coachman to wait by the garden gate?"

"Correct. He'll be there at half past one, as we planned."

"Late enough that my presence at the party will be well-established, and that a few carriages will have started to leave. I'll have my own carriage leave at the same time, hopefully distracting the Livingstons from my departure, and if that isn't possible—"

"As your reputation makes quite likely," Lady Victorine couldn't resist a waspish interjection.

"—then it lays a false trail. Evers has been instructed to drive to my country house, so if he's pursued out of the capital he might not well be caught until his pursuers have gone several hours, even a day, in the wrong direction. By then, with even reasonable luck, the matter will be complete, and I'll be a married man."

"Of course. Do you think I would propose to the girl if I didn't mean to marry her? Or were you expecting me to patch up my debts by blackmail?"

From Lady Victorine's expression, Lillet suspected that that was exactly what she had been thinking. A debutante's virginity meant something in a way that an older woman's did not; where if Lady Victorine were caught out in a sexual adventure her reputation would only be tarnished, Lady Rowena would plunge herself and her family into a humiliating scandal. It was all about self-control and good judgment; rules could be bent, but not flouted, and those rules varied by age, position, and power. A girl just "out" was expected to show restraint until she had established herself in the eyes of Society. To do otherwise would brand her as reckless, unable to govern her emotions, and arrogant to put herself above the counsel of those senior to her.

"I had no idea that you were such a romantic," Lady Victorine all but sneered. "Or is it that you actually love the chit?"

De Lys rolled his eyes scornfully, which seemed out of character for a romantic poet.

"You do have a marked tendency towards melodrama, do you not? Lawful marriage is merely the safest, most practical course. The position of a marchioness's son-in-law is safer by far to occupy than that of a criminal seducer, to say nothing of the risk to my reputation and that of Lady Rowena!"

"And she ends by being leg-shackled to a rogue. You are a cruel man, Michel."

"As I said, you have quite the taste for melodrama. It is no more than a bargain struck between two people: my wit and charms for her, her family's wealth for me."

This time Lady Victorine didn't bother to conceal the sneer.

"And of course she's agreed open-eyed to such a bargain, hence the need for an elopement."

"What the gel thinks is not the problem, but her family, as well you know." He offered her a smirk. "They're as unromantic as you."

"Whatever. I've done my part, so it's in your hands now, succeed or fail. Just remember that unlike some of your other creditors, I'll expect my favor regardless of what happens."

She tossed her head, turned on her heel, and began marching out of the trees. De Lys watched her go, arms folded across his chest, waiting for over a minute before he, too, departed, leaving Lillet and Amoretta alone once again but in a very different mood than before they'd been interrupted.


	6. Chapter Five

# Chapter Five

"I can't believe it," Lillet said. "Baron de Lys and Lady Rowena are going to elope?"

"In fairness, Lady Rowena is the type of woman the Baron tends to gravitate towards," Amoretta pointed out.

"Young, innocent, and romantic, exactly the sort most likely to succumb to his charms. And from what he said, the whole thing is nothing but an attempt to get at the Livingston family wealth, a marriage of convenience except that she doesn't know it."

"The poor girl."

Lillet nodded, thinking. "The whole thing will be a terrible scandal, for her to elope from her own debut ball. If they go through with the marriage, they'll recover in time but it will still be a black mark against the Livingstons with the high sticklers, though if the marriage is a success the romantic appeal will win Lady Rowena herself some favor, though the people who think _that_ would still see her parents in a bad light.

"On the other hand, if they get away from the ball and _then_ get caught, the scandal will be even worse. Lady Rowena would have to rusticate in the country until the next Season while fresher scandals take her place, and she'll always be seen as headstrong and a little 'fast' even then, although at least she wouldn't be trapped in a marriage to a man who's just using her."

"I'm impressed that you know all that."

"Well, I may hate going around in Court Society, but I'm starting to get a better handle on the politics of it. And there'll be political fallout, too. Lady Emily being a practicing magician has already set a few of the more closed-minded families against the Livingstons, and an elopement under these circumstances will make it look like they're bad parents, who can't properly teach or control their daughters. That both children would have done something shocking and outrageous would make it look like there was something wrong with the _family_."

"I feel sorry for Mistress Livingston."

"So do I. It's bad enough that she has to fight to get any respect for being a magician. I mean, we all have to deal with people who think that magic is nothing but devil's work and hate it on those grounds, but you'd never see my family or their neighbors say I should give up magic for the sake of being a farmer because of social expectations!"

"It's completely unfair to all of them," Amoretta agreed, "and it's based on so many different wrong assumptions about people and how they ought to live."

"I agree, little love, which is why we're going to do everything we can to stop this elopement. Oh! I'm sorry; I shouldn't have said 'we' without asking you first."

"Don't be silly, Lillet; of course I'll help. I don't want to see an innocent young girl be seduced by a rake into a loveless marriage. It's a mockery of everything the sacrament of marriage is supposed to represent. Even a marriage of convenience is supposed to be based on a fair understanding of the terms between the spouses and is at least _honest_ in that way. This kind of deceit is monstrous."

"Yeah, I'd want to protect anyone from getting used that way, all the more so as Lady Rowena is an associate's sister. Although..." she mused, considering the facts, "there's also the possibility things aren't as they seem."

"Oh?" Amoretta's look of confusion was reminiscent of her early days, when things like tears or a smile had been bewildering experiences for her to see. The memory all but made Lillet's heart melt.

"We know that Baron de Lys is a liar, but we don't necessarily know whom he's lying _to_. It's not the most likely idea, but he might be lying to Lady Victorine, either because she's more likely to help if she thinks she's aiding something sneaky and underhanded, or because he's just embarrassed to admit that he's doing something that's so traditionally sappy and romantic. A lot of men can be like that."

"Do you really think that's a possibility, Lillet? He didn't sound like he was lying to me, though I know I'm not very good at spotting that."

"Well, I think it's more likely that he's a cad, but it is possible there's more to him than that."

Amoretta looked concerned.

"But if you think it's a possibility, then shouldn't you find that out before you interfere with the elopement?"

Lillet shook her head.

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"It's like I said: even if Lady Rowena and Baron de Lys are happy together, the elopement itself will have all kinds of nasty social consequences for the Livingstons. Lady Emily has told me enough about her parents to know that they're not ogres. De Lys could properly court Lady Rowena in the usual way. If de Lys is a worm, then he's convinced her to elope with him so that she wouldn't have a chance to see him for who he really was over the course of a long courtship and conventional engagement. If he truly loves her, then they're two romantic idiots caught up in the grand gesture without thinking of the consequences."

She paused, grinned, and chuckled at herself.

"And just listen to me, going on like some worldly-wise matron, clucking her tongue at the silliness of the younglings."

"Well, you have been in a stable relationship for three years, now," Amoretta pointed out. "At the least, that's long enough to look back at the first throes of infatuation with an experienced eye."

"On the other hand, who am I to criticize someone for romantic silliness after making love on our hosts' library table?"

She pulled Amoretta to her, slipping her arms around her lover from behind. Amoretta gave a little squeak of surprise at the sudden embrace, then sighed happily and leaned back into Lillet. She was really much happier when they were touching, the emotional connection that literally sustained her at its strongest.

"But you're right, of course," she murmured into Amoretta's ear. "No matter how absurd or short-sightedly passionate anything we do might be, at least you and I know what we have in each other, and that whatever happens it won't hurt the people we love. That matters. And Lady Rowena doesn't really know what she's feeling, what the consequences of giving in to her emotions are—or else she does, and she's just that selfish and there's all the more reason to stop her."

"You don't think that, though."

"No, I think she's an innocent, sheltered girl who is exactly the type of person who'd be easy prey for de Lys's kind of charm." She sighed into Amoretta's hair. "I don't see it, myself. I've always preferred the kind of person who was open and direct about their intentions. I suppose it's no surprise that I fell for you," she added. Amoretta turned her head, smiling back at her in return.

"I'm very happy that you did. And even looking at it from all the different angles and possibilities I hadn't thought of, I still agree with you that the elopement ought to be stopped. So if I can be of any help, just ask."

"Thanks, Amoretta. I admit, though, there's another reason to stop it I haven't mentioned yet." Nervousness tickled at her lower belly; she didn't want to say this, but the thought of keeping it back bothered her more.

As it turned out, she didn't have to say it, because Amoretta recognized it right away.

"You don't like Lady Victorine, and you're more than happy to take a legitimately valid opportunity to make a plan of hers go wrong?"

Lillet grinned, a little sheepishly.

"That's the reason, yes."

"Well, from what I heard, she sounds as if she is a fairly contemptible person, so I don't think you'll be judged too harshly for wanting to see her plans go wrong, so long as you act for something like this where it honestly ought to be done, rather than only to harass her."

"That's what I hoped you would say." She might not have angelic wisdom, but Amoretta did have just about the strongest moral compass of anyone Lillet knew.

"But how are you going to stop the elopement? Are you going to tell the Marchioness?"

Lillet shook her head.

"If at all possible, I want to keep there from being any kind of scene. A fight between Lady Rowena and her mother could be nearly as big a scandal as the actual elopement would be, and it's very likely she _would_ make a scene if she believed the Marchioness was trying to separate her from de Lys."

It didn't take a lot of imagination for Lillet to conceive that a girl about to elope with a romantic poet might have a knack for melodrama.

"No," she continued, "what we need to do is thwart the elopement before it starts, and without anyone finding out that it was happening in the first place. I'll let Mistress Livingston know what was going on later, and that way the Livingstons can settle their family affairs in private, without scandal." She sighed, then said, "I do feel sorry for Lady Rowena, who's going to be hurt badly by learning she was being used like that."

"Mm-hm."

"In a way, it might be nice if everyone was like you, able to sense the actual feelings behind the words." It was, after all, Lillet's love for Amoretta that sustained her, not what she said or did to express it but the truth of the emotion that underlay those acts.

"Or if people would just express themselves honestly, people wouldn't be so confused about discerning truth from lies, when to extract hidden meanings and when not to."

It will be noted that tactful discretion was neither Amoretta's best skill nor one she particularly agreed with.

"I don't know, though; if everyone was honest all the time, then we wouldn't be good at spotting lies, either." She thought about it for a second. "Or maybe you're right after all, and they'd stick out like sore thumbs?" Lillet gave up with a shrug. "We're getting off-point, though. The question is, how do we prevent the elopement before it happens, without giving rise to a scene or an outcry?"

"You've ruled out telling Lady Rowena's parents. I suppose that also goes to other means of restraining or diverting her?"

"I think so. A girl who's trying to elope won't allow herself to be distracted, and if actively delayed will eventually be rude and break away. And any kind of physical restraint like locking her in a room would just prompt a huge scene."

There were, of course, other means of interfering with Lady Rowena's ability to carry out the elopement, but things like casting a sleep spell on her would be completely out of bounds. "It's for their own good" was an acceptable excuse when devils were attacking, but not so much when the sister of a casual friend was getting into romantic trouble.

"Now, de Lys," she completed the thought aloud, "him I wouldn't hesitate to use more direct methods on, but there's a couple of problems with that."

"One being that magically attacking someone is a crime?" Amoretta suggested mildly.

"Well, yes, so turning a baron into a newt without direct provocation wouldn't really do much for my career as a magician, I agree, but that assumes that I would get caught. The other problem is that if something happened to de Lys, Lady Rowena would likely kick up as much a fuss as if it happened to her. If I put him under with a sleep spell, for example, would she remember that their romance was supposed to be a secret, or would she rush to his side out of worry and concern?"

"Oh, I see."

Lillet nodded.

"That's the problem with situations where as much of the goal is to avoid public knowledge; it cuts off a lot of the effectiveness of direct action."

Her arms tightened around Amoretta, holding the other girl close as she grappled with the riddle.

"So," Amoretta said, "if I understand everything that you've said so far, you need to stop the elopement in some quiet fashion that doesn't impact the principals directly. Is that right?"

"I think so. I can't imagine any obstacle to them that they wouldn't either get past, or in _failing_ to get past create enough of a problem that we'd fail in our secondary goal of protecting the Livingstons' reputations."

"Hmm."

"That's the problem with the situation. It's not an enemy to fight, so simply throwing power at it won't work. Really, any kind of conflict at all defeats the purpose of what we're trying to achieve. It's like playing a game of chess where you're not allowed to capture any of the other pieces or block any of their moves."

"I think you could probably win even like that," Amoretta said. They'd both learned the game at the same time, but Lillet was the much better player. In fact, Amoretta had never been able to beat her. Lillet sometimes felt a little bad about that, but she knew Amoretta well enough to know that if she ever played at less than her best, let alone to lose on purpose, Lillet would be lucky if being exiled to the couch for a week was all the punishment Amoretta gave her!

"I appreciate the confidence," she said, chuckling as much as her thoughts as at Amoretta's assumption. "But in a situation like that, even if it's like at the Silver Star Tower and I was allowed to replay over and over until I figured out what the consequences of every action would be, I'd still never be able to win. The only way out of a scenario like that is not...to...play..." Her voice trailed off as things started to fall into place.

"You've thought of something, haven't you?"

"I think I have, as a matter of fact. Something that would give us a chance to short-circuit the entire thing."

"Can I help?"

"You might. I need to work out a few of the specifics, so maybe you can do something."

"What is it that you're going to do?"

Lillet gave a chuckle that sounded almost wicked to her ears. And indeed, her self-satisfaction at coming up with an idea could be described that way.

To say nothing of the fact that the way Amoretta felt in her arms was starting to cause thoughts of a different kind of wickedness to arise, reminding her of what their purpose had been in coming out to the garden in the first place.

"Well, it's just this: I'm going to make it so de Lys and Lady Rowena don't try to elope in the first place, all of their own accord. It's like that chess game: we can't play if you hide the box with the pieces."

Amoretta turned to her, a little frown on her face, and a furrow between her brows as she was obviously trying to think of what Lillet meant.

"I'm not really sure that I understand."

"That's all right. You can try to figure it out for yourself while I'm coming up with the exact way I want to do it, and then I'll explain it to you...if you're a good girl."

Amoretta's brows went up at that.

"If I'm a good girl? You're not making any sense, Lillet."

Lillet bent her lips to her lover's, kissing her softly.

"I just meant that once I had all the details worked out, I'd tell you so you could play your part, whatever it is."

"But only if I'm 'good'?"

"Of course." The smile she gave Amoretta was not unlike those Grimalkin would give a fresh fish. "If you were a _bad_ girl, I'm sure you could persuade me to tell you much sooner."

Amoretta burst out laughing.

"Lillet, that was _awful_!" she giggled.

Lillet blushed.

"I know; it sounded a lot less ridiculous in my he—"

She was cut off mid-word by Amoretta's mouth closing over hers, kissing her long and lovingly.

"I didn't say..." She sucked lightly on Lillet's lower lip, then kissed her again, harder this time. Lillet's hands slid down to Amoretta's hips, pulling them against her own body. "...that it didn't work."

Amoretta's hand cupped the back of Lillet's head, pulling her back in for another kiss. The heat and softness of her together made Lillet's senses swim; she felt the tingling pressure run all along her limbs, her toes curling inside her ballroom shoes.

Once again it was Amoretta who took the lead, like she had in the library and on the terrace, her mouth forcing Lillet's open, her tongue invading. The hand not cupping Lillet's head slid down her back to her bottom, pulling forward. The pressure of her thigh urged Lillet's legs apart, rubbing up against the core of her. She pressed forward, moving Lillet backwards until the magician could feel the rough bark of a tree against her back.

Memory flooded her, of how just over an hour ago she'd had Amoretta bent back on the library table, how she'd straddled her leg like this, riding her. Only, this was the reversed version of that; it was Amoretta rubbing, thrusting, rocking her hips back and forth to grind her thigh against the wet heat of Lillet's sex.

"Ah! A-Amoretta..."

Her cry was silenced before it could do more than begin by Amoretta's lips covering hers again in another long, hard kiss.

"You need to stay quiet, Lillet. Out here, there aren't any walls, no rows of books to deaden the sound."

"That's...not...oh! Not easy..." Not with Amoretta doing that, rubbing hard against her, using the tree to keep Lillet pinned, bearing in with as much force as she could. Whimpering cries drove themselves through her clenched teeth, silence refusing to be kept in the face of the pleasure she was feeling.

It was absolutely maddening, as Amoretta drove her higher and higher, building the feelings all the more. She could feel the wetness seeping from her, making the fabric even slipperier as it slid between their bodies. The closer she neared to her climax, the more she ached to touch Amoretta too, to return some of what she was feeling to its giver. Lillet was pushing the dress down off Amoretta's shoulders when her lover caught her wrists in her hands.

"Wait."

A mewling growl of frustration forced itself up from deep in Lillet's throat.

"I want—"

Amoretta pressed Lillet's hands back against the tree above her head, the bark rough even through her gloves.

"Not yet."

Shards of moonlight painted her breasts pale silver, the rosy nipples taut, upthrust and beckoning to Lillet's lips and mouth, and she whimpered again that they were beyond her reach.

Amoretta leaned in and bit at her neck, just barely soft enough that it would not leave a mark, then soothed it with her tongue.

"I just want you to feel," she said. "Let me make love to you."

Lillet whimpered again. Her legs were trembling as the pleasure built. Every circling thrust of Amoretta's thigh sent hot spikes up through her, radiating out along every nerve. She couldn't help herself; she started to sag, her back scraping against the tree as she began to slip down, more of her weight on Amoretta's leg.

In response, Amoretta pushed Lillet's hands together so she could span both slim wrists with her left hand. The pressure of fingers and thumb was barely a restraint; what held Lillet's hands in place was not physical force but rather her awareness of Amoretta's will, that Amoretta wanted her hands pinioned and so they stayed, as firmly fixed as if they'd been chained.

Amoretta's newly freed hand dropped, sliding down Lillet's hip to just above her knee, and lifted, pulling Lillet's leg up. Her dress slid up as her leg bent, and she hooked her bared calf around Amoretta's waist, while Amoretta's grip helped support her, holding her in place while her lover continued to thrust against her, drawing stifled cries from between Lillet's clenched teeth. Her fingers flexed and twitched in Amoretta's grasp; it was a sweet agony not to reach out and seize the ash-blonde, fill her senses with her, to do nothing but take the pleasure as it was offered.

And Amoretta _knew_ it, proved her knowledge a moment later when her lips moved to Lillet's ear and said in a plain, simple voice Lillet found more seductive then the most honeyed purr, "Come for me, Lillet, and you can take me as you will."

She paused in her movements for one second, two, three, leaving Lillet wanting, aching, and then thrust again, mouth closing once more over Lillet's as she did, and the explosion ripped through the magician's senses. Her limbs clenched taut, her blood sang in her ears, and she could feel the wild fluttering deep within herself. She let herself go completely, crying out and trusting Amoretta to stifle the noise, giving herself into her lover's hands completely.

When she descended from the heights, her racing heart beginning to gently slow, she found Amoretta still supporting her, keeping her from falling. Lillet smiled, still feeling the muscles within her quivering at the aftershocks even as Amoretta let her leg down and Lillet found her footing on her own feet. The homunculus released Lillet's wrists as well, dropping her hand to cup Lillet's face.

"Did you enjoy that?" she asked. It was, perhaps, an odd question to ask of a woman who had just climaxed in one's arms, crying out her ecstasy against the questioner's mouth, but Lillet understood where the ghost of worry in her eyes came from.

"Yes, I did, very much," she said, gently stroking Amoretta's hair, "even though it was hard to wait and do nothing to you in return. That's twice now, this evening, that you've taken your fill of me without letting me respond until you had finished—or rather, _I_ finished."

"It's not the same, though. In the library, I wanted to give you pleasure first, because I could tell you were upset and thought it would be better to seduce you, without obligation to return what I was doing on your part. If you wanted, we could, but that would be later, after you could just let yourself go and enjoy something pleasurable."

"Well, it certainly was that. And now?"

Amoretta's pink tongue wetted her lips, the slight raggedness of her breathing like her erect nipples in betraying her arousal. Lillet was sure that if she slipped a hand between her lover's legs, she would find her went and ready beneath her dress.

"I just...wanted you. To take you, please you, make you feel what I was doing even more because of how much you wanted to _act_. I saw how you reacted in the library, how even after your first climax it just made you wilder, made you want it, want _me_ more, and I wanted to do that to you. To make you feel ecstasy, but also make you mad for me besides."

"And thus," Lillet said, curling her fingertips around, trailing them from the back of Amoretta's neck to her throat, then down her chest, "did the temptations of the flesh lure the angel into wickedness." She circled the stiff point of one nipple with her thumb. The pressure drew a little gasp, which even from someone as vocal as Amoretta told the force of her need.

"But did it work?" she asked Lillet shamelessly, longing in her gaze.

"Oh, yes," Lillet said, and crushed her mouth to her lover's to claim her.


	7. Chapter Six

# Chapter Six

Lillet might have tried to restrain herself a bit, under ordinary circumstances, but Amoretta had made it plain that wasn't what she wanted. Rather, she wanted to feel the full force of Lillet's passion, to be swept away by her lover's emotion and desire.

She barely maintained enough sense of time and place to not drag them both down to the ground. Grass stains and dirt smudges would ruin their dresses beyond redemption; no amount of tidying would allow them to return to the ball. And while at that moment going anywhere at all was the last thing on her mind, there were things that had to be done later.

Instead, she spun them around and backed Amoretta up against the tree where she'd been pinned a moment ago. Her mouth captured Amoretta's in another fierce kiss, then another, while her hands closed on the soft fullness of her breasts, squeezing and stroking. Lillet kissed down her jaw and throat, softly biting and sucking. The homunculus's flesh didn't bruise like a human's would, and Lillet sucked harder, knowing that it would not leave a betraying mark to give them away later on.

"Ah!" Amoretta gasped, high and sharp, then again as Lillet pinched and tugged the taut buds of her nipples between thumb and forefinger. She raked her teeth along Amoretta's collarbone, drawing yet a third cry, then kissed her hard to silence her. Her tongue plunged into the other woman's mouth, dipping into and tasting her lover, and she could feel the continuous shudders that ran through Amoretta as she continued to ravish her breasts.

Lillet broke the kiss for a moment, pulling her head back to smile wolfishly at her.

"Like that, don't you?" she said in a voice thick with lust. Amoretta's gaze was hot and slightly unfocused, glazed as it was with her own desires, and Lillet felt another sharp clench within herself at the sight of what she was doing,

"Yes," Amoretta answered at once, urgency making the single word into a plea.

"Is this what you wanted from me?" Lillet asked, tugging her nipples hard enough just to the edge of pain.

"Oh, _yes_."

Lillet actually growled deed in her throat as she closed her mouth over Amoretta's yet again, hard and punishing. The homunculus had her in a frenzy of desire, now, that would only be slaked by claiming her utterly. She all but tore her gloves off with the need to feel skin against skin, tossing them away, then roughly pulled Amoretta's dress up, bunching the skirts at her waist in a fever to get at the prize beneath, She ran the tips of her first two fingers up the length of her, just inside her outer lips, and found her as dripping wet as she'd expected. Lillet lifted her hand to her mouth, pausing in the kiss to suckle the film of clear fluid off her fingers, savoring the sweetly spiced musk of her lover's arousal, yet more proof of Amoretta's delight in what she was doing.

She lowered her hand again, dipping her fingertips even deeper into Amoretta's heated, slick folds, then pushed her fingers into Amoretta's own mouth, invading her with her own taste. Amoretta sucked at Lillet's fingers, tongue swirling and stroking to capture every bit of her nectar like it was a favorite treat.

Lillet's left hand closed over Amoretta's breast while she pulled the other one free with a soft pop at the broken suction, then slid it down Amoretta's belly.

"Wet for me, aren't you?" she said against Amoretta's ear, her voice husky. Amoretta only gave a wordless moan in agreement as Lillet's hand descended to her core again, bearing down hard on the engorged nub. "Well, then, let's see just how wet I can make you," Lillet growled, and pushed two fingers hard to the knuckle into Amoretta's heated depths.

Amoretta gave a high, sharp cry that would have soared had Lillet not hastily stifled it half-born. Sound would travel all too well, and while a few moans and cries would attract only bemused smiles from anyone in earshot, there were limits to the discretion of others when one went too far.

And Lillet, at that moment, would not stand for any interruptions.

She slid her fingers back out of Amoretta until just the tips were within her entrance, then plunged in again, feeling her lover's inner muscles squeezing down, reflexively trying to increase the friction. She gave another thrust, then another, beginning to set a rhythm, There was no subtlety to it, no art, just one woman with a burning, lust-drunk need to ravish her lover, to plunder her body and feel her climax uncontrollably under her hands, and a second woman with an equal need to _be_ ravished. Amoretta trembled against her with every thrust, moans and cries wrung from her with each stroke of Lillet's fingers.

Her hands came up, encircling Lillet, pulling her closer. It might just have been to hold herself up, but from the way she clung so fiercely, her fingers digging into Lillet's back, it felt like more to her, like Amoretta was urging her on, begging—no, _demanding_ —more.

It was a request Lillet did not hesitate to grant, slipping yet a third finger into Amoretta's drenched core, angling her wrist as she did so that the heel of her hand settled over the upper part of her sex. She circled it, feeling the damp folds shift, parting to give her better access as her skin came into direct contact with Amoretta's clit. She withdrew her fingers slowly, then rammed them in again and felt the other girl's nails dig convulsively into her back.

Lillet gave herself wholly over to the sweet madness, then, plunging into Amoretta again and again, each movement of her hand in and out massaging hard over her clit as well. Their mouths devoured one another, the cries and gasps coming with every stroke, every thrust. Higher and harder she drove Amoretta, forcing her to climb the peak. With their bodies pressed together as they were, she could feel the convulsive tightening of her muscles, her thighs drawn stiff and taut, reflexively clenching around Lillet's hand as if trying to capture it, pull it against herself even harder.

She thrilled to it, every reaction of Amoretta's body, everything the pleasure wrung from her, every moan, every throb, every spurt of wetness, her breath coming in quick, sharp gasps into Lillet's mouth, until her entire body drew up, rigid, she clamped down on Lillet's fingers like a vise, her eyes opened wide, staring blankly at nothing but the fireworks consuming her own senses as she cried out her pleasure in a rush of air that flooded Lillet's mouth, threatening to stifle Lillet's breath just as the sound of the scream itself was being stifled.

She clung to Lillet as slowly her limbs began to relax, her body coming down from the heights she'd scaled. Their mouths parted and her head sagged against Lillet's shoulder while she panted for breath. Amoretta was trembling, shivers running through her entire body, and Lillet used her left arm to support her waist as she backed away from the tree. They stood like that for several long minutes, holding close to one another while Amoretta came back to herself.

At last, Lillet slid her hand out of her lover, gently stroking the length of her sex. Were they back home in their own room, they'd usually end in mutual caresses, making love slowly and sweetly to follow up after the fierceness of their passion. Unfortunately, there would be none of that, at least not now. Their kiss was filled with tender regret.

"I can never get my fill of you, little love," Lillet said, gently stroking her cheek. "Not in this way or any other."

"Nor I you."

"I love you so much. I think that someone must have answered a prayer for our lives to cross." Lillet bit her lip, realizing that her affirmation, heartfelt as it was, might have come off the wrong way. "I'm sorry; I hope you didn't think I meant that literally."

It was not a concern that most young ladies had to concern themselves with, but then again, most young ladies' lovers did not carry the spirit of a literal angel.

"I know what you meant." She offered Lillet a wry smile. "It feels oddly nice to see that I'm not the only one of us who can put a phrase wrong, though. That doesn't seem kind, though."

"No, but it's very human."

"I suppose it's all right, then, although it does seem rooted in envy and—"

"Not another word about it," Lillet said, pressing her fingertip to Amoretta's lips to silence her. It was her right forefinger, though, on a hand still wet and glistening to halfway down the palm and Amoretta playfully ran her tongue along it. Lillet felt a responding twitch between her thighs, and hastily stepped back; they both blushed as they looked at one another.

"I think we'd better get back to the ballroom," Lillet said, "or else we're going to prove too tempting for one another."

"I think you may be right," Amoretta admitted. "I love you, you want me, and this body is telling me that there's nothing better I could find right now than to answer your desire."

Lillet chuckled.

"Mom always told me that when you find someone you love and who loves you back, that's the strongest temptation of all. It's just that we usually don't talk about it because there aren't any bad consequences from giving in with a person like that...like you."

Amoretta paused in pulling her dress up over her shoulders to blush again. Lillet as good as ruined her handkerchief cleaning her hand, although maybe Gaff could salvage it. Of course, he was an elf, not a brownie, but one never knew what trick of cleaning magic one might know.

"Do you see where I dropped my gloves?" Lillet asked.

"I think they must have fallen in a shadow." The splintered moonlight made it very hard to see reliably; illumination was a patchwork at best.

"We need light," Lillet decided, "or we're never going to get back to the ball intact."

"Just make sure that it doesn't shine through the trees."

"All right."

She unfastened one of her pearl ear-drops and held it in her cupped palm, then pressed a fingertip to it. Slowly, she allowed mana to flow into it, working with the natural construction of the material as if she were attuning it for the creation of an amulet or talisman, but instead of locking the mana within the pearl, she allowed it to leak, shining the pale blue of Necromancy so as to blend better with the moonlight.

"There, that should last seven or eight minutes," she said, refastening it to her earlobe.

"Thank you, Lillet."

"Oh, and there's my gloves." She picked them up, brushed them off, and slid them back onto her hands, pulling them up her arms. "I'm lucky I didn't pop any stitches taking them off as roughly as I did. Could you come over and take a look at my back?"

"Of course. You'll do mine, too?"

"Mm-hm."

When Amoretta came a couple of steps closer, though, it became obvious that Lillet's request was superfluous. It hadn't been quite so obvious by moonlight alone, shadows softening and concealing many sins, but in the mana-light of the pearl it became plain that no amount of brushing and tidying was going to repair the rumpled state of their gowns. Lillet sighed and grinned sheepishly.

"I suppose that someone more experienced with these Court Society affairs knows to only slip off once to make love during an evening. Or at least, having already rumpled our dresses once, don't proceed to go and expect everything to be fine after an even more vigorous tryst outdoors."

"We can't go back to the ballroom looking like this, though." Amoretta looked obviously downcast. "I'm sorry that I brought you out here without—"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence," Lillet said, hoping that her broad smile made it plain she wasn't chastising Amoretta. "After all, I had something to do with the state of _your_ gown."

"But I wanted you to do that."

"And _I_ wanted _to_ do that. Well, no, actually I wanted to tear the dress into little pieces, push you down on the ground, and...and I probably ought to stop talking about that."

Amoretta licked her lips.

"You probably should," she agreed.

Lillet couldn't help but giggle.

"We're _awful_ tonight, aren't we?" For her, she supposed it was the stress, the nervous energy born from having to deal with the gathered nobility, and Amoretta's flirtations and seduction were giving it a ready outlet to follow. As for the homunculus, she couldn't say, but it was self-evident she'd been in a mood better suited to a pagan fertility goddess than anything angelic since the carriage ride.

Not that Lillet minded in the slightest.

She did suppose that it would have been nice if she'd displayed _slightly_ better self-control. But she was, after all, nineteen and happily in love, and she definitely wasn't going to regret any joyful moments with her beloved. If her indulgence caused problems, then she would simply have to find ways to solve them.

"Ah, well, we'd better get inside soon or the gardeners might find us in the morning," she concluded.

"But what about our gowns?"

"Well, when I was a little girl, I sometimes wondered if a great lady's dress was held together by magic, they seemed so fanciful. Now we can just do it literally."

"I didn't know that you could do that."

Lillet shrugged.

"Most domestic magic is just summoning familiars to magically perform certain tasks, and we pay Gaff money to do most of that; it's basically the same thing unless there's a special problem of some kind."

In truth, the Royal Magicians, the Magic Academy, and even the Magical Society didn't focus on that sort of thing, the minor hedge-witchery of Glamour that made up some of the most basic levels of the mystic art. Apparently, though, Professor Gammel had had a book on it, as Lillet had found herself understanding such arts with the same facility as she did nearly anything else, meaning that she had learned it during those centuries of looping time forgotten by her mind but remembered by her soul.

"The only thing is, the Marchioness is a powerful noble whose daughter is a Royal Magician. I have a feeling..." She opened her sight to the unseen, to things like mana crystals that existed throughout the world but all ignored by those who could not perceive the arcane, looking a little deeper than she had to see the Runes on the ballroom windows. There, sure enough, she could sense the slumbering Runes and the fine webwork of magical fields linked to them. "Mistress Livingston has been borrowing from Master Tanqueray; I recognize his signature on these wards. I'm actually really impressed."

"What does it do?"

"It's a sort of alarm field. If anyone uses magic within the field, it triggers an alert, letting Mistress Livingston know where and when it happened."

"I could use a barrier to block the effect," Amoretta offered, but Lillet shook her head.

"No, I'm afraid that wouldn't work. That strategy is good for enclosing a Rune, so that its triggering can't reach whatever it's trying to get to. This is a field effect, that would be set off in the event of any use of magic. The act of raising the barrier itself would trigger it." She thought it over, then added, "If Mistress Livingston wasn't _inside_ the field at the time, then enclosing the entire estate in a barrier would work, but since she's here now, there's no way to do that."

"Then why didn't it go off when you made the light?" Amoretta asked, by all appearances genuinely curious. She _was_ an Alchemy apprentice, after all.

"All I did was put mana into the pearl; I didn't actually do anything with it. The light is just a side effect."

"Oh, I see."

Lillet nodded.

"I really don't see how I can do anything about our dresses without setting off the alarm. If I prepared in advance I might be able to create something, an effect that would let me slip through the field, but building it here would just trigger the same problem as your barrier: the countermeasure against the alarm field would trigger the alarm field." She scowled, anger and frustration plain on her face.

"Lillet, it really isn't anything to be angry over. I don't think Mistress Livingston will get mad about what we did, given that other couples like the Smithwicks have done the same. It's embarrassing, of course, but that's only fair."

"Penance for being led around by the...heart," she settled on rather than a more accurate word, "instead of the head? But that isn't what was bothering me."

"Oh? What is it, then?"

"Well, whatever we do about the elopement, it's probably going to use magic. That's my strongest weapon, and what's more it's one that Baron de Lys and Lady Victorine don't really have any functional defense against. _They're_ not magicians, and even if they carry amulets or charms those wouldn't be anything I couldn't deal with." That wasn't arrogance, just plain fact. "But with Mistress Livingston's alarm spell in place, I won't be able to take any active steps. Our dresses are an annoyance, and in an absolute worst-case scenario we could slink out, a bit of a scandalous laughingstock but at least a funny story, not a contemptible one, and we'd probably deserve it anyway. But the elopement—that's something serious, with real consequences for Lady Rowena and her family."

"Can't you tell Mistress Livingston in advance?"

Lillet shook her head.

"No, because of all the reasons I mentioned before, about why we don't go and tell the Livingstons about the elopement. That's strictly a last resort. And we can't just tell her that I need to do something magical and not tell her what. It's her family home; she'd be honor-bound to demand details no matter how friendly we are."

She didn't even mention the possibility of lying outright to Lady Emily. Amoretta was uncomfortable enough about the social contract that led to tactful discretion, and even more so about lying by omission without using any explicitly false statements. Actual, deliberate lies were right out—and frankly, if it came down to a choice Lillet would do what was needed to keep faith with Amoretta and the Livingstons could look after themselves.

Lillet still wanted to help, though. She knew what it was to be seventeen and in love; she'd just been lucky enough to fall for someone worthy of her. If only there was a way to use her magic without triggering the estate's defenses. It didn't seem possible, though; every method she could think of to contain or bypass the alarm web would set it off, unless she could get Lady Emily out of the estate.

 _Which I could probably arrange for if I'd had the chance to set things up in advance, but not on the fly like this._ To push the chess metaphor a little further, it wasn't like playing with a handicap, it was as if she'd taken over for another player midgame and was left to try to turn the wreckage they'd already made of things into a useful position. She had to play the game out with what she had, not wish for things she would want if she'd begun on her own—

"No, wait," she cut herself off.

"Lillet?"

"I'm thinking about this all wrong."

"I'm not sure that I understand."

"Well, that's only fair, since I didn't start talking out loud until I was most of the way through my thoughts. What I meant was, I don't need to figure out how to solve the problem according to certain rules. I was thinking about it like it was a game, but it's _not_ a game, it's real life, and the 'rules' aren't something forced upon me. So instead of that, what I need is to figure out what I need to solve the problem, then find a way to get _that_ —to change the situation to one that suits me better. To put a few pieces back on the board."

"Oh, I think I see what you mean. But does looking at the problem that way help you, Lillet?"

She nodded firmly, then broke into a grin.

"Actually, it does. What I need is to be able to use magic to stop the elopement without getting caught."

"I understand that, but how are you going to actually do that? From what you've said, it's impossible. If you use magic, you'll be noticed at it, and if you try to hide it, then you'll be noticed in building up the hiding effect."

"That's completely true."

"You're smirking just like Mr. Advocat," Amoretta chided.

"But of course, Amoretta Virgine," Lillet let the name roll off her tongue like she was tasting a delectable treat. "I have every right to be, after all, as I have found the answer for which we seek." She actually managed to keep up with the imitation all the way to the end, making Amoretta chuckle.

"So, what is the answer? What are you going to do, Lillet?"

Lillet's smirk grew.

"I'm going to fix our gowns."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've showed Amoretta using barriers before, way back in "Life in a Bottle" from 2008.


	8. Chapter Seven

# Chapter Seven

The first sign that Royal Magician Lady Emily Livingston had turned her attention on what Lillet and Amoretta were doing was a faint yellow haze in the air, like mist or fog but whose particles were made not from water droplets but pinpricks of golden light visible only to those whose senses were open to the mystic. A master alchemist, after all, didn't just barge into a potentially dangerous situation; she investigated first, creating a homunculus and using its power of clairvoyance to view the situation from a distance.

"That must be so useful," Amoretta said, sounding slightly envious. Her unique construction gave her abilities no other homunculus had, most significantly the power to move around independently of her life-sustaining flask, but it also left her without the standard array of psychic abilities that made homunculi useful aides to magicians in and out of combat.

"You could always create one yourself with a Laboratory Rune," Lillet pointed out.

"That's true," Amoretta noted. In that respect, she really hadn't lost anything.

Knowing that Mistress Livingston's eyes were on them, Lillet went on with her summoning. The variant Fairy Ring she'd created had been what triggered the alarm spell, so she went ahead and, having enhanced its power while Mistress Livingston had been setting up her own Rune and creating the homunculus (or had she had it waiting all along and just needed to extract herself from the party?). The timing worked out quite well, so that a brownie, an elf-like creature with sharper, wizened features and as much brown as green in his garments stepped out of the Rune just as Mistress Livingston passed through the trees.

"Lillet, why are you working magic in my family's home?" she asked at once. Her voice was more curious than challenging, a sign of the good feeling between the two magicians, but it was nonetheless a demand for answers, not merely a request.

"I know it's rude," Lillet said, "and I'm sorry, but I didn't want to create a scandal. The Rune doesn't show through the trees, does it?"

"Not really. There's a faint glimpse of green light at some angles, but it doesn't actually look like a light until you get past the shrubbery back there; you'd take it for a trick of the moonlight."

"Oh, good; I was hoping I'd laid it properly but it's hard to be sure without standing on the other side and looking. It would defeat the whole purpose if someone came along to see what was going on, after all."

"I don't count for that?"

Lillet shook her head.

"Not really. It's your family and the Royal Magicians I want to avoid making a scandal for. It doesn't really matter if I make one _to_ you. That's just embarrassing."

"But we deserve that anyway, so it's only fair," put in Amoretta.

"So what _is_ this scandal that made you sneak off to the garden to do magic?"

Lillet blushed. Even though Lady Emily was relatively close, and even though telling her this was actually part of her plan to stop the elopement, she still found it mortifying to admit.

"We didn't sneak off to the garden _to_ do magic," Amoretta said. "We were here already when Lillet realized that we needed to do magic."

Lillet gave her lover a look of heartfelt gratitude. Amoretta found it much easier to say things like this; to her, the truth was simply the truth and there was no _shame_ in telling it, even though it could be inconvenient. Though she could be embarrassed, it was by the realization of when she'd put a foot wrong—or internal judgment of her own actions—not in the telling of them to others. It made a subtle difference to a human's emotion, and it was why she could talk about such things without hesitation.

She knew that, too, which meant that it was almost certain that she'd deliberately taken the burden off Lillet.

"Okay, so I asked the wrong question, but still, what are you doing?"

"Well, that has to do with why we were here in the first place..." Lillet began.

"I seduced Lillet into bringing me out here so that we could be private together," Amoretta finished, "but now our gowns are so wrinkled and rumpled that if we went back to the ballroom looking like this it would be plain to everyone that we had been involved in something physically vigorous."

"And when you combine Society's predilection for assuming that everything has a sexual connotation with the fact that you're not the only people who can't keep their trousers up and skirts down for six hours"—Lillet's blush deepened, given that this had been their second such incident—"everyone would probably pick the right answer right off." Mistress Livingston sighed at her conclusion, then added, "So that's the scandal you were trying to avoid."

"That's right."

"Um, I'm sure this is all very interesting, ladies," put in the brownie, "but am I here for a reason or do you just like an audience when you're talking over such stuff?" He lifted his hat and scratched at his balding scalp.

"You're here to fix our clothing," Lillet told him. "To remove the wrinkles and stains so that we look like we did at the start of the evening."

"Okay, sounds reasonable. It's gonna cost you, though. I'm not some elf, to just do a job because I've been told to."

In fact, Lillet could have compelled the brownie's obedience using the power of the contract embodied in the Rune. It would have taken no more than the force of her thoughts; brownies had little more power than an elf or an imp. But Lillet had known about the gnomelike creatures' greed before she summoned one, and happy servants did better work.

"A pint of fresh milk, delivered tomorrow, for each of us," she offered.

"Hah, a pint? A gallon, more like!"

"A gallon _total_ , not each," Lillet countered.

The brownie gave a theatrical sigh.

"I tell you, nobody appreciates good domestic magic these days. Fine, then, one gallon for the both of you." He squinted at her. "I hope you're not expecting me to do anything about the hair. Clothes I can fix, but personal grooming is your own problem."

"No, I understand that. We'll fix each other's hair."

"Good, because it looks like you've had someone pulling at it. Did you two get into a fight or something, because between the hair and the dresses it looks like you were in a wrestling match and..." His voice trailed off as his memory of the earlier conversation pushed a slightly more accurate version of the events through the veil of his general cantankerousness. "Oh, no. Just forget I said anything, I don't want details, I'll just fix the dresses and let you get back to whatever you were doing in privacy."

Mortified, he held his hands out towards Amoretta and a soft green aura began to flow over her dress, working its way from the ground up, smoothing out the creases, shedding bits of tree bark, causing stains to fade the same way as the ground-in particles and liquids were detached from the fabric to spill onto the grass.

"I'm sorry I disturbed you with my magic," Lillet turned back to Mistress Livingston, who'd been standing by during all of the byplay with the brownie. "But I hope that you'll agree it was the better decision under the circumstances?"

"Well, you did just get your own familiar embarrassed at you, so I think you're probably right, so long as no one else catches you out at the magic either."

"I'll dismiss the Rune as soon as we're done here, so it won't draw any attention from passerby."

"All right, then." The alchemist sighed and shook her head. "I suppose I can't be too upset, since it's not as if you're the only couple out here. I do wish you'd had more aplomb, or maybe I mean less, than to just give in to your passions. But then, you are just nineteen, so if you're acting like a lovestruck teenager there's good reason for it. Just try to be discreet in returning to the ballroom, please?"

"We'll go back separately," Lillet assured her. "And we came out here the same way."

"Good, that should do it. I'll leave you to your _toilette_ , then." She turned away, actually took one step, then paused and looked back over her shoulder. "Lillet, that Rune...it's Puck, isn't it? The Fairy Ring variant?"

"That's right."

"And you don't have a grimoire with you for it?"

"No, I didn't think I'd need any magic at the ball."

Mistress Livingston's lips quirked into a smile.

"And you wonder why I sometimes forget your age." She tossed Lillet a cheery wave and retreated back towards the garden's open space.

"There," the brownie declared around thirty seconds later. "That's the one done, and not so simple a job, besides. It took three castings of my cleanse cantrip, so I'll need to be resting up a bit to restore my mana before I can get to work on you. Unless you want to summon up a second brownie to finish faster?"

"If I do, you'll have to split the milk with him."

"...Won't take more than a minute before I'm ready to go again."

"I thought you'd see it that way," Lillet said, then made a little gesture towards the Rune (pure theatrics, as her mental command was what actually activated it) and it sprang to life, the elfin figures beginning to spin and dance.

"Hey, I said I'd be ready in a minute!" her familiar protested.

"I'm not summoning another brownie," Lillet said. "This is an enhanced Rune, so it can call more than your folk."

The golden mist of the clairvoyance had faded; Mistress Livingston was no longer watching Lillet and Amoretta, which made it the perfect time to do something else.

"I'm here!"

The familiar that appeared had blond hair and pointed ears like a fairy, but it was smaller, only about a foot tall, and male. Dressed in a sleeveless green tunic and trousers, he flitted about on dragonfly-like wings shining iridescent green in the Rune-light. Just as the Puck Rune called brownies in place of the standard Fairy Ring's elves, so too did it replace the fairy summon with pixies.

"Welcome," she greeted him.

"Hmm, so what is it that you want?" the pixie said dubiously. They were notoriously hard familiars to control, even moreso than fairies or brownies were. Presuming, of course, that the magician wasn't asking them to do something that they enjoyed.

"I want to play a prank on someone."

"Oho? Tell me more!"

"You're going to have to be careful, though. There's another magician here tonight, and if she sees you she'll banish you before we can pull it off. And I won't be able to give you invisibility, because I have to shut down this Rune, else she'll know something's afoot. You'll have to hide _and_ keep your target in sight."

"Don't worry! You're not dealing with some winglet, y'know. Having to work at it just makes it more fun. So what's the prank?"

"Well, it's on a young lady who's a bit too full of herself. Smug, arrogant, looking down on anyone she thinks isn't as clever or powerful or well-born as she is. She has a scheme afoot that will hurt a friend of mine, and I would dearly like to see it go wrong. And, if the outcome happens to make her embarrass herself in public a little, that _would_ be just too bad, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, yes, just terrible," the pixie snickered. "I'm starting to like this already."

~X X X~

It was perhaps ten minutes past one when Lady Victorine Pétillant allowed one of the Marassou cousins to escort her from the ballroom floor towards the refreshment table. The crush of the ball had begun to thin out a bit: certain elderly guests had chosen to abandon the party, no longer vigorous (or foolish) enough to stay up until three or four in the morning; meanwhile, certain members of the faster set, having done their social duty, had departed for the pleasures of the gaming hells and other dens of fashionable iniquity. That said, there were still at least three-quarters of the guests present; this was the event of the night for the politically and socially aware as well as the marriage-minded seeking a suitable alliance.

Lady Victorine smiled as the handsome young man reached for a glass of iced champagne punch. He was dark and sharp-featured like all his family, and she amused herself with the thought of how he'd look between the satin sheets of her bed. Though she was all but promised to Duke Kubanskaya for the evening, she had no illusions that the diplomat from Chernyakhov had any intention of a permanent alliance, and a wise woman looked to the future.

She did allow herself to indulge in the fantasy of something more; the Duke was in his early fifties but the body beneath his expensive evening-wear was athletic and well-kept, and reputation had him a notorious rake whose demands on his lovers were both extensive and...inventive. Indeed, if gossip held any truth, at least one notorious courtesan had found herself unable to satisfy certain of his more creative requests and had been forced to retire from the field. Lady Victorine licked her lips, looking forward to finding out if she was up to the challenge.

The lady was lost in the heat of her imaginings, and as she was looking up at her current escort he, too, could not help but begin to feel the heat she directed towards him, not realizing that only a part of it was actually _for_ him. Neither one of them, therefore, was looking at the glass in Lady Victorine's hand as a glittering shower fell from the ceiling with unerring aim to the surface of the glass.

Lillet noticed, of course, but she'd been watching for it. Her summoned pixie's confidence had obviously been well-placed. She could have dismissed the familiar then and there, in case Mistress Livingston or anyone else should spot him hiding in one of the chandeliers, but she didn't have the cold heart to make him miss the fun.

It didn't happen at once; Lady Victorine had taken several sips of the pixie dust-laced punch before the first effects settled in. She swayed, suddenly having trouble finding her balance, and some of the drink sloshed out of the glass (and down the right leg of young Marassou's breeches). She caught herself, swayed again, then pressed her fingertips to her temple.

"I...I don't feel quite the thing all of a sudden."

The young man steadied her with one hand and took the glass with the other, setting it aside where the servants would dispatch it.

"Are you all right, Lady Victorine? Do you need to sit down?"

She hiccuped in response, then blushed, obviously not used to such a thing.

"The punch did seem a bit strong tonight," Marassou said, more from chivalry than accuracy.

"I...I guess so...I didn't think I..." Her voice trailed off woozily.

"My great-aunt often has trouble keeping track of how many glasses she's had," he remarked, steering her towards the nearest row of chairs. He got her settled on one at the end of the row, which was good because in the next moment she swayed again, pressed her hand to her lips, then spun and cast up her accounts into a potted aspidistra. Marassou backed away, shock on his face; his chivalry towards a casual dance partner clearly had its limits and dealing with an apparently wretchedly drunk woman surpassed them.

It was entirely possible that some well-meaning guest or friend might have helped her to the ladies' withdrawing room or someplace Lady Victorine might have lain down for a bit. Lillet stepped forward quickly to cut off that possibility.

"Please have Lady Victorine's carriage brought around at once," she said, catching the attention of the nearest servant. "The lady has obviously taken ill and should be brought safely home as soon as possible."

"N-no, should be...fine...if I c'n..." Lady Victorine slurred, but Lillet's suggestion had already taken root.

"Stuff and nonsense," remarked Cassius Kir. "Had the same experience m'self with a lobster patty once and wasn't right for two days. No, the only solution is to get to bed safely for proper care." Lillet didn't know whether he believed that was the case or was just providing socially acceptable cover for a young woman he believed had over-imbibed, but either way it was enough to cement the situation. One of the maids helped Lady Victorine to her feet, her wrap was brought, and in no more than ten minutes the carriage that was supposed to be waiting for the eloping couple was instead bearing its owner back to her home.

"And that," Lillet said to Amoretta, "should be that." She sent the pixie back to Faerie with an act of will, the little familiar still laughing. He'd had plenty of chance to observe the arrogant young woman while waiting for the right time to strike, and knew that getting the reputation (even in hints and whispers) of having so little self-control as to get falling-down drunk at a ball would be poison to the sophisticated beauty.

The pixie sense of humor, it will be noted, tended towards the broad, with the haughty and humorless its favorite target.

"Are you sure?"

"Well, with no carriage, there'll be no elopement."

"They could still use Baron de Lys's. I know that he was going to send it away as a decoy, but now that Lady Victorine's is unavailable and he knows it, he could have his driver stay here and pick up the two fo them at the garden gate instead."

Lillet shook her head.

"I don't think so, for two reasons. One is the time; unless he realized very quickly what was happening with Lady Victorine, he wouldn't be able to countermand the orders he'd already given in time."

"Well, that's possible, especially with how things worked out, but isn't that random? You couldn't predict exactly when Lady Victorine would want refreshments."

She shook her head again.

"No, that had nothing to do with it. The timing was fixed; it was the method that varied by opportunity. The pixie would have used a different curse if the circumstances were changed. It needed to happen early enough that Lady Victorine's driver wouldn't have already taken her carriage around to the garden gate, but late enough that Baron de Lys wouldn't have time to set up a substitute." The self-assurance of a scheme gone right dropped away from her, and she gave Amoretta a shy smile. "That's why we could go ahead with our tryst in the garden, because we needed to pass time anyway."

"That makes sense. But I'm still not quite sure that I understand why you trusted so much to the timing. Oh, but you did say that there were two reasons?"

"Right. And it's really the second reason that matters the most."

"Then what is it?"

Lillet grinned at her.

"Why not try to figure it out for yourself? You can consider it a lesson in chess, if you like: an exercise in how to outthink your opponent."

Amoretta frowned back.

"You're teasing me."

"A little bit, yes. You can consider it payback for the way I'm going to blush every time I cross paths with Emily Livingston for the next month or so, especially if you and I are together. I'm just glad that she isn't a gossip. Some of the Royal Magicians are as bad as a brood of old village hens, men and women alike."

The homunculus wrinkled her nose.

"On the other hand," Lillet continued, "so long as it concerns you, I probably deserve that reputation. And if you hadn't so pleasantly seduced me, our clothing wouldn't have been such a mess, and I wouldn't have had the perfect excuse to cast a Rune and summon a familiar to deal with Lady Victorine without Mistress Livingston realizing that it was a decoy. Well, not really one, because we _did_ need it, but then, that's the best kind of decoy, the one that actually does something on its own. So, if you haven't figured out the answer by the end of the night, I'll tell you on our way back to the palace."

Amoretta tipped her head to one side, thinking it over.

"All right," she decided. "I'd still rather you just told me, but since you want to do it this way I'll play along. And besides, I might just be upset because it didn't turn out that there was anything I could do to help out, after all."

"Actually, you can help now if you like. It isn't _magical_ help, but we do need to keep an eye on de Lys. He might be more creative than I think he is."

"Isn't that him now, escorting Lady Rowena onto the dance floor?"

"They're striking up a waltz, so that would be a good excuse for them to talk over what just happened without them looking surprisingly close. And since the best chance to observe and even overhear them would be to stay as near them as possible, would you care to dance?"

Amoretta smiled warmly at her.

"I'd love to dance with you, Lillet," she said, and took Lillet's gloved hand between hers to draw her onto the floor.


	9. Chapter Eight

# Chapter Eight

Amoretta's foot slipped on the carriage step as she was following Lillet inside and she might have fallen had she not caught herself against the driver. He helped steer her into the carriage with practiced ease, no doubt being used to tired, sore-footed, and slightly tipsy passengers after social events. Once she was settled opposite Lillet, he swung the door shut, and no more than half a minute later the carriage pulled into motion.

Lillet leaned her head back and sighed happily. It was half past three, and she was tired, her feet were begging for sensible boots, and she had ached in a wide variety of places (some more interesting than others), but she was also happier than she'd been after a social function than she could remember.

_Maybe the first time Amoretta danced with me in public?_ That was a while ago. _But definitely not since then._

"I'd say that went well," she decided. Her voice sounded faintly smug to her ears, not precisely how she'd wanted it to be, but she supposed that a little smugness was in order. After all, Lady Rowena Livingston was still at home, not on the way to an illicit wedding, and the Baron de Lys had gone off an hour ago with a couple of his cronies, by all appearances intent on drowning his failures with wine, women, and (probably rigged) games of chance.

"Yes, it did," Amoretta agreed brightly. "I had a lot of fun."

"Me, too. Do you know, I think that my dancing might even be getting better? If this keeps up, my partners could be able to feel secure about their toes for even the most enthusiastic, foot-stomping country dances...someday," she amended with a grin.

"You dance very well," Amoretta chided her, reminding Lillet of when they'd been riding in this same carriage on the way to the ball. Self-deprecating remarks were not going to slip past the homunculus unchallenged. "It's only when you're worried about what you're doing that you make mistakes."

"I'd argue with you, but I was actually thinking something similar when I was dancing after we came back from the library," Lillet admitted.

"Well, there you are. You can hardly argue with yourself."

"Honestly, I think we humans have some of our worst arguments with ourselves. There's no one to keep it from getting out of hand, and it's hard to gain any strategic advantage over your opponent."

Amoretta's brow furrowed for a second as she digested the thought, and then she shrugged, no doubt writing it off as one of the many oddities of human minds.

"Speaking, though, of outsmarting an opponent, you did say that you would tell me what the second reason was."

"I did, didn't I? It's actually very simple: I didn't think that Baron de Lys would try to elope in his own carriage because it wouldn't accomplish his goals to do so."

Amoretta tipped her head to one side, her expression bearing the same perplexity as it had the first time that she'd seen Lillet shed a tear for her.

"I don't understand," she said with a hint of petulance. "He needs a carriage to elope, so why not his own?"

"That's where the lesson comes in. It's not good enough to just think up ideas for getting what you want, as you also need to realize that what your opponent wants isn't necessarily the same thing you're after. Like, in chess you might be attempting to control a certain area of the board, but your opponent might be centering _their_ offense in a different area entirely, so getting what you're after might just end up leaving you defenseless."

"But tonight, the Baron and Lady Rowena wanted to elope and we wanted to stop them. That's the same thing."

Lillet shook her head.

"No, that's not quite true. Our goal was to stop the elopement _and_ prevent a scandal for the Livingston family. The _Baron's_ goal, though, was to successfully elope with Lady Rowena and marry her, or at least so compromise her reputation that the Marchioness would consent to a quick wedding afterwards.  
He didn't care about the scandal at all."

"I think I see what you mean in principle, but I don't see how it applies to the facts. He could still elope in his own carriage."

Lillet shook her head.

"Actually, it isn't anywhere near as easy as all that. He talked about it himself; it's why he planned for his own carriage to be a decoy. The Livingstons would almost certainly give chase, and Mistress Livingston might even use magic to aid the pursuit. If they get caught on the road before they can marry, then he loses—he doesn't get a penny of the Livingston money. You and I would lose, too, because of the scandal for Lady Rowena, but Baron de Lys didn't care about _beating_ us. He didn't even know that you and I were involved. He only cared about achieving his _own_ goal."

"Ah, I see!" Amoretta clapped her hands together in glee. "If he tried to elope and failed, he'd lose the chance to be with her forever; her family would make sure that they never get another chance to run away together."

"Right. His best move was to just bide his time and wait, then arrange another opportunity to try to elope in a few days. From how he talked with Lady Victorine, I knew he wasn't the foolishly reckless type who'd rush off in desperation instead of thinking things through when his plan failed. The only real risk was if he realized somehow that Lady Victorine's illness was induced, and that he had an opponent. In that case, he might have attempted something desperate just because he'd feel like he had no choice."

There'd actually been another risk, the reason that Lillet had kept track of de Lys even after the initial elopement had been foiled: that he might have had the foresight to not only plan in advance but to have a contingency plan waiting for if something went wrong with his initial scheme.

Apparently, though, while de Lys might have been a schemer, he wasn't like Lujei or Advocat, manipulating events many steps ahead and always ready for the next move. Which was a relief; entertaining as it might be to test her wits that way, the fun went away quickly when the stakes were real.

No, she much preferred things the way they'd actually been.

"But obviously that didn't happen, so he did what you expected and put the elopement off for now."

"And tomorrow I can tell Mistress Livingston about what was going on, and Lady Rowena's family can step in to make sure that no marriage takes place without _everyone_ involved knowing exactly what they're walking into."

"Do you think that will end it?"

"Well, Lady Rowena's infatuation won't just vanish because of what her family tells her. It's a strong emotion and de Lys knows how to manipulate it to his advantage. But, for example, if the Marchioness is willing to cut her off without a penny if she marries de Lys—or if she can bluff him into believing she will—he'll drop Lady Rowena in a moment. That craven behavior would do more to end her infatuation than any lecture from her parents or good advice from her friends. And, of course, if he stands by her anyway, then he can court her properly in the conventional way."

"You don't believe that he will, not after what we heard."

"No, not really. He'd have had to be lying to Lady Victorine to get her help and there's no reason why he would; there's nothing special about her carriage that would make him want to use it instead of borrowing someone else's that he could just tell the truth to get their help."

Amoretta giggled, which was not at all the response Lillet had expected.

"Little love?"

"Oh! No, I'm sorry, I agree with you, it's just that there _is_ something special about Lady Victorine's carriage, at least according to Adeline Margeaux."

"I still can't understand how you get along with that harpy."

"She says it amuses her that I'll tell her the truth about things instead of simpering to her face and whispering behind my fan as soon as her back is turned. And she admires my taste in women."

"She ought to," Lillet muttered, remembering the incident at the New Year's masquerade.

"She genuinely did think that you were someone else."

Lillet sighed.

"In any case, what did she say?"

"Just that she wished she knew Lady Victorine better, so she could offer to ride home with her, and if she was sober enough, get a chance to try out the convertible seats. Apparently, they fold out and down so that they meet in the middle, with the padded backs and cushions becoming the surface of a bed. It must be terribly convenient on long trips."

"Or in other ways," Lillet said.

Amoretta's lips curved into a smile.

"Oh, so you were thinking about that, too?"

Lillet shifted in her seat. She _hadn't_ been thinking about anything risque in anything more than an academic, detached fashion, making an assumption that Margeaux's interest in the contrivance was sexual.

Amoretta's expression was making her think about the possibilities in a more tangible sense.

"It would be more comfortable," she said.

Amoretta ran her hand along the plush velvet cover of her seat cushion.

"These seats are very soft, though," she observed. "And the carriage is well-sprung, so going over anything but the worst holes or bumps in the road would be more like rocking and swaying than painful, distracting jolts."

"They're a bit narrow, though. A couple on the same side would have to turn at the waist to face each other, and sitting opposite like we are we'd have to constantly lean forward. Both ways could get hard on the neck and back after a while, and leaning would put a person off-balance so that a solid bounce might tumble them onto the floor."

Lillet wondered if Amoretta had noticed that she'd slipped there and said " _we'd_ have to lean forward."

"There is another idea, though."

"An easier way to kiss in a carriage?"

"Of course."

Lillet grinned at her.

"You sound intent on proving that."

"Miss Margeaux was very enthusiastic about Lady Victorine's clever contrivance, to the point where she made it sound very inconvenient to kiss and embrace in an ordinary carriage."

"Ah, and so you wanted to defend the honor of the Royal Mews' carriages and prove that they were every bit as good as anything Lady Victorine's wainwrights might come up with?"

Lillet was joking, of course, but as sometimes happened, Amoretta missed the humor in it.

"No. It's just that when she said that, I couldn't help but think about kissing you." She ran her hands along her thighs, smoothing the fabric of her dress across them. Light and darkness were alternately cast over her body as the carriage passed under street-lamps or down shadowed lanes. "I considered this way, and that way, but very soon it stopped being a puzzle to unlock, and all that was left was the desire to hold and kiss you."

Putting it into words seemed to have torn down all her barriers; she was staring at Lillet now with purely naked desire. They'd been talking about kissing, but it was plain that she wanted considerably more.

_And why not, if she'd been thinking about it for the past hour and a half?_ Oh, there would be distractions enough, the need to make sure de Lys hadn't been up to anything, the music and dancing, casual conversation with partners who weren't Lillet. But even so, once the mind had started in the direction of passion, it always wanted to come back around to that again and again until satisfied.

"No wonder you didn't figure out why I didn't think de Lys would try to elope. You had a much more interesting problem to work on."

"It was very distracting," Amoretta agreed.

"But more importantly, did you come up with a solution to your riddle?"

She didn't answer in words, but reached for the strap that was there to hold on to in case of especially bumpy travel and used it to pull herself into a near-standing position, as close to upright as the carriage roof would allow. With her free hand, she unclasped her pelisse, letting it slither down her body, its weight pulling it off the cushions to pool at her feet on the floorboards. She then pulled up her dress and petticoats, baring her stocking-clad legs so that she could swing herself forward, settling onto Lillet's lap, facing her with Lillet's thighs pinned between her own.

Releasing the strap, she cupped Lillet's face between her hands. The homunculus's skin felt even cooler than usual, making Lillet realize that the difference was she herself, her own body's temperature rising. Then Amoretta brought her mouth down to cover Lillet's, and she stopped thinking about such minor details entirely.

There was no slow build-up in this kiss, no teasing or nibbling or playful invitation. Amoretta had been wrestling with this for nearly two hours, after all, and having been given the chance to act on her desires at last was doing so. Her mouth was hot and open, her tongue insistent, dipping, tasting, caressing. Lillet's arms came up to embrace her without conscious thought, Amoretta's body soft as it twined with hers. A part of her couldn't help but marvel at how the homunculus could be superficially cool and yet her body gave off both the soft warmth of affection and the raw heat of desire.

Some days, she still couldn't believe that she'd been blessed enough to find this unique and amazing woman who supported her so unflaggingly, showered her with the warmth of love, and opened her eyes to so many things by virtue of her unique perspective on life, letting her see new sides of things she'd once taken for granted. Every day, she was a revelation to her.

_Even in this,_ Lillet thought as her mouth moved on Amoretta's. She'd never have imagined herself to be the kind of person who'd have the reckless courage, no matter how tempted, to make love on someone else's library table or in their garden. It was only possible because of the absolute trust she had in her partner, that Amoretta was reveling in the same temptation, that there was no shame to be felt in being sexually adventurous, just love and joy to be shared—and that if the worst happened and they were caught out, there would be no blame cast either way, no wedge driven between them but just something to laugh about because they were young and in love and craved as much of one another's company in any and all ways as they could get.

Lillet's hands slid down Amoretta's back, slipping under her bunched skirts to cup her bare bottom, pulling her close so that Lillet could feel the wet heat at the juncture of Amoretta's thighs pressed up against her belly. She deepened the kiss, not just accepting and responding to her lover's desire but initiating, her own tongue invading and exploring so that Amoretta moaned softly against her mouth. Amoretta's hands traveled everywhere, up and down Lillet's back, over her shoulders and arms, along her flanks, pushing under her pelisse and stroking her through her dress. They would break the kiss, breathing heavily, before diving in again.

_More,_ Lillet's mind cried. She wanted more, to drown her senses in Amoretta's touch, her taste, her scent, and to fill the other girl up with her love in a tangible way. She could feel the trickle of wetness inside her, the growing need as strong as if the two of them hadn't touched for days, even though they'd already made love twice this evening as it was. Or maybe that was why, the floodgates once opened, wouldn't close again until she had been completely satiated.

Breaking the kiss once more, she moaned, "I want you," against Amoretta's cheek.

"So do I," Amoretta said, pushing Lillet's dress off her shoulders, then fumbling with the clasp to her pelisse.

Lillet flicked her tongue against the pink shell of Amoretta's ear, tracing its shape with the tip. "We...we can't, though," she said, her voice filled with aching regret. Her hands continued to squeeze and knead Amoretta's bottom, unwilling, perhaps unable, to stop even as her last sliver of reason told her she had to. "We'll be back at the palace soon."

Amoretta's hands slid down her chest, pushing Lillet's dress down farther to bare her breasts, then began to stroke them greedily.

"Don't worry; we have all the time we want."

"What—ah!—how?"

"I told the driver to take the long way back."

_When she fell against him,_ Lillet realized. She hadn't stumbled getting into the carriage; she had slipped on purpose so she could tell the man without Lillet noticing. This had been her intention all along, to seduce Lillet for a third time if she could.

"And they say that I'm a witch," she said, pleased by Amoretta's cleverness. It gave her a warm feeling that the girl she loved and desired in turn wanted _her_ , not just out of momentary impulse but with the time that gave rise to planning, to carry out that desire.

"You are," Amoretta said, trailing kisses along the side of Lillet's throat, brushing over the band of her choker on the way down. "Look at the magic that you work on my body."

Lillet shivered, feeling a quick, sharp clench of her sex, partly at the play of Amoretta's lips and tongue on her skin, but even more in reaction to her flirtatious talk. She found it all the more arousing when she did because of how matter-of-fact the homunculus usually was about her emotions and desires.

"But just look at you." Lillet cupped the side of Amoretta's face, gently urging her down, down as her lips brushed over the collarbone, framing it and sucking for an instant, then down the upper slope of Lillet's breast. "We're on our way home right now, back to the palace, back to our own bed, but you can't even wait for that, or else you just wanted the thrill of making love in the carriage."

"Did you want to stop?" Amoretta swirled her tongue around Lillet's nipple, then sucked the hard point into her mouth.

" _God_ , no!" the witch gasped, clutching Amoretta's head to her breast. Amoretta's lips trembled against her flesh as a throaty chuckle ran through her at Lillet's response. She suckled firmly, sending tingling lines of fire from Lillet's breast down to her wet core, then went from one nipple to the other, back and forth until both were quivering, stiff and erect. Amoretta's hand descended, brushing over her belly, the touch making Lillet's stomach flutter, she was so hyper-sensitive, then descended further, pressing between Lillet's legs. The position was awkward, the bunched fabric of her dress and petticoats rumpled more thickly than usual from her sitting position, but even so the pressure shot a bolt of pleasure through her clit, which felt so hard and tight that any touch at all was enough to leave Lillet gasping.

Twice now, though, she'd waited, twice passively allowed Amoretta free reign to pleasure her while sitting back and savoring it. Once had been seduction, winning Lillet over bit by bit to give in to temptation. The second time had been to deliberately agitate, build Lillet's frustrated desires to the breaking point so as to turn Lillet loose on her. Lillet had enjoyed both—but there wasn't going to be a third. Here, in the carriage, Lillet wasn't going to let things be one-sided, but to give as good as she got from the very start.

She pulled Amoretta's head up from her breast and kissed her again, hard and deep, a forceful kiss that would brook no refusal. With her free hand, she tried to free Amoretta's own breasts from her décolletage, but with only one hand to do the work and her eyes closed for the kiss she was clumsy, and she heard stitches break, seams pop as she pulled the neckline down.

They broke the kiss, momentarily surprised by the sound. Their eyes met, and an apology waited on Lillet's lips, only to be stilled when Amoretta spoke first.

"Let me help with that," she said, and lifted her hands to her own neckline. Lillet thought she was going to shimmy herself out of her bodice, so she was left breathless in surprise when Amoretta instead fisted her hands in the fabric and tore her gown open, seams ripping apart.

She tossed her head like a proud, almost feral beast; her smile was almost triumphant at the sudden flash of desire Lillet hadn't even tried to hide, not only at the beauty of Amoretta's body but the way she'd bared it to Lillet's eyes. She knew what she did to Lillet and she reveled in it—probably because she knew that despite how beautiful Amoretta was, she wouldn't have been half as tempting to Lillet without the love between them. It was that bond that allowed them both to indulge themselves freely and without any limit but the actual extent of their own desires.

And at that moment, Lillet found those limits to be very far off indeed.

She grabbed for Amoretta and spun, falling back onto the cushioned seat so she lay full-length across it and pulled Amoretta down on top of her. Their lips met again, while hands roved feverishly over bared flesh. Cloth was yanked out of the way, pulled forcefully down over hips and kicked away from legs, both of their gowns ripped more than once in the process and ballroom slippers knocked off their feet, leaving them in nothing but their stockings, Amoretta's white and Lillet's black to suit their dresses, with Lillet still bearing her gloves and the choker around her neck as additional adornment.

Lillet reached up and undid Amoretta's hair. It had already been on its way to coming loose again, but now she freed it completely from its restraints so that it fell in a silvery-blonde waterfall across and over her shoulders, then down over Lillet's skin so that she couldn't help but compare its silken texture to the slightly rougher feel of the velvet cushion against her back.

Arms and legs wrapped around each other as they embraced once again, lips meeting once more in one searing kiss after another. Their naked skin slid together, Amoretta's smooth coolness against Lillet's perspiration-slicked heat. Amoretta moved over Lillet, kissing down her torso. Her tongue flicked a bead of sweat from between Lillet's breasts, then dipped and teased her belly button, making her shiver.

"I love your taste," Amoretta said, and moved back up. Her tongue slid into Lillet's mouth, and Lillet swore she could taste her own saltiness in the kiss. She let her hand trail down Amoretta's spine, teasing the curve of her back with her nails, then teased again at the top of the cleft between her buttocks, a sensitive spot that made Amoretta's hips hunch forward, thrusting in reflex.

"Ah!" Amoretta gasped. "Please, Lillet, I...I need you. I need your hand on me, inside me..."

Lillet could have waited, could have teased her lover or drawn it out for her, but the plain fact was that she wanted nothing more, to drown her senses in Amoretta's touch, her taste, her scent, and she found her hand sliding between them, down to the juncture between Amoretta's legs.

As she did, she felt Amoretta's hand doing the same, moving down Lillet's stomach, pushing through the tight golden curls, already damp with lust, and moving down to brush over her lips, lightly stroking. Lillet shuddered and groaned as Amoretta stroked her, the gentle pressure making her flesh shift and flex against the tight nub of her pleasure even without direct contact. She bore down harder, running the flat of her hand over Lillet's vulva, teasing another moan from the magician. Her smile was eager and appreciative, savoring Lillet's reaction, but then Lillet pushed her first two fingers into Amoretta's slick channel and her eyes unfocused and a sharp cry tore from her lips.

Amoretta responded at once, sliding her hand up and settling two fingers over Lillet's clit. She bore down firmly, rubbing in quick, tight circles, drawing one knee up beneath her to give them both room to move. Their mouths closed over one another again, swallowing up moans, cries, and gasps as they drove each other onwards. Lillet could feel her hips pushing upwards, grinding up against Amoretta's hand even as Amoretta was doing the same, driving down onto Lillet's pumping fingers.

The wave came upon them hot and fast; sensing her approaching climax, Lillet pressed her thumb against Amoretta's bud, pushing her on even faster, while Amoretta slowed her own hand, realizing what Lillet was doing...until little more than a minute later, when she pressed down again, rubbing even harder than before, bringing Lillet off just as her own climax claimed her. Fire took Lillet, singing along every nerve and swallowing her mind in light as their mouths swallowed each other's cries of passion.

Momentarily spent, Amoretta sagged onto Lillet once again. They kissed softly, tenderly, stroking each other's hair and making little purring sounds, cooing endearments and declarations of love in each other's ears.

The crash lasted only a short time, however, before whatever imp seemed to have taken hold of them both made itself known again. The slippery grasp of Amoretta's intimate flesh on Lillet's fingers was too tempting to ignore, and she began to flex her hand again, moving in small, slight strokes, gently teasing her thumb over Amoretta's clit. Amoretta let out a little hiss of indrawn breath, then gently brushed her own fingers over the center of Lillet's pleasure. Still hyper-sensitive after her climax, Lillet's entire body was wracked with a sudden shudder that pulsed along every nerve. She opened her eyes, looking up at Amoretta as light from the passing street-lamps worked their way through the window-curtains and lightly brushed her paleness with bronze.

"I still want you, little love," she said, her desire earnest and passionate. Amoretta's own cravings were equally plain, the heat in her expression inescapable. The homunculus's naked yearning was like a flame that threatened to consume them both, and yet Lillet wanted nothing more than to burn with her.

"There's never enough of you," she said. "Give me a hundred years, five hundred, a thousand, and I'll never have my fill, not in my life, my bed, or my heart." She could have wept, love and passion were joining so powerfully at that moment.

"And I you, Lillet. Your love saved me from endless, empty days. What you did for me, it's something so enormous that I can never begin to repay it."

"No," Lillet told her. "No, Amoretta. Loving you is the easiest thing I've ever done in my life."

The plain truth of her words must have come through, for with a choked little sob Amoretta crushed her mouth to Lillet's again, the fierce passion of her kiss as if she was trying to pour out all of her love, all of her need, everything of the bond that tied them together in one moment. Lillet returned the kiss as best she could, answering passion with passion, and by the time their lips parted both women were on fire for one another once again, their love seeking out and finding the simplest, most direct way of expressing itself.

"I want to watch you this time," Amoretta said, surprising Lillet. "I want to see your face in the moment you let go."

Lillet's imagination sent a smile onto her face, conjuring up the image of Amoretta's own expression when she was consumed in delight.

Wordlessly knowing that they didn't want to take turns this time, either, they swiftly arrived at a solution. Continuing to kiss and caress one another the entire way, they sat up and Lillet worked her left leg out from under Amoretta's right, swinging it up and over her thigh. They half-turned in opposite directions and Lillet felt the hot wetness of Amoretta's core slide up against her thigh until it settled over her own, their labia meeting in a kiss.

The shadows, though, were too much, the slivers of light not enough for them, so Lillet raised a hand and, forcing herself to somehow concentrate through the feel of silken flesh, the heady scent of arousal and completion, touched her fingertips to the back wall of the carriage. The rattling of the carriage-wheels over the cobbled streets jostled them, grinding their scissored bodies against one another and Lillet let out a hiss. Amoretta— _the vixen!_ —twisted slightly, pushing against her, and Lillet nearly lost the thread of her focus. Biting her lip and whimpering with every twist of her lover's hips, she managed to hold on to the bright spark in her thoughts, continuing to sweep her fingertips over the cushioned wall. It was crude, sloppy work for which she'd have chided any apprentice, but when she was done the warm glow of Alchemy's golden light washed over them both, letting her see Amoretta's features in all her glory, the long, sleek limps, the delicately thin, so-agile fingers gripping the seat cushion, the coral-pink peaks of her breasts proud and upthrust, beckoning to Lillet's tongue, her rapt face and burning eyes alight with passionate love.

"I knew you could do it, Lillet," Amoretta said, actually sounding proud of her lover's ability.

"It wasn't a fair test," Lillet said, shamelessly devouring Amoretta's bared body with her eyes—a scrutiny Amoretta didn't flinch or hesitate beneath in the slightest. "Make the reward enough, and anyone will move mountains."

It was only a playfully affectionate remark, but Amoretta blushed anyway, the rosy hue clear in the Rune-light. Lillet didn't know why it had struck her so powerfully, other than that the love they shared was obviously on the homunculus's mind as well.

"Lillet..." Amoretta didn't _quite_ chide her.

Lillet responded by bracing herself with her arms behind her.

"Oh, no, little love, if you're going to tease me like that, you had best be prepared to— _ah!_ "

Amoretta had cut her off, deviltry glittering in her crimson eyes, with a sudden thrust of her hips that ground her core up against Lillet's. Smiling back with affectionate lechery, Lillet began to return the strokes. It was a bit tricky, at first, but they soon settled into a rhythm born of long practice and close knowledge of one another, finding each other's pace. Lillet's breath began to come in little gasps as she thrust, circled, rubbed, grinding herself onto Amoretta.

It took longer this way, the stimulation not quite as direct than it was with fingers and tongue, and she savored every bit of it, the steadily building, clawing _need_ in her that seemed to gulp down every spark of pleasure that surged up from between her legs. She felt hyper-sensitized still, feeling everything, the cushions as her back and bottom slid over them, the softness of Amoretta's skin, the heat and wetness where they were joined together. Sweat from their exertions trickled down her body, one droplet tracing down her breast to hang at the point of her nipple. Amoretta's eyes followed it, fixing there for a moment, and it sent another spark of desire through her to be so open and exposed before her lover.

The intense scrutiny didn't last much longer, though. Amoretta tried to keep her gaze on Lillet, but all too often her eyes would clench shut as high, sighing cries and moans of pleasure were pulled from her. She rocked her head from side to side against the carriage wall, her hair being dragged back and forth across her shoulders, stray locks falling over her torso. Lillet fought for control, but she, too, could not fight off her reaction as she climbed closer and closer to the peak, her inner thighs starting to clench involuntarily around Amoretta, her breathing growing ragged. The homunculus's cries came faster and faster, and Lillet knew that she was reaching the very edge herself.

"Amoretta, sing for me!"

" _Ahhhhhh!_ " She threw her head back, eyes screwed shut, face contorted in ecstasy as a high, soaring cry that almost _was_ a song in its joyful melody burst from her, filling the carriage. Her entire body seemed to have frozen in place as her muscles clenched sharply, and Lillet ground herself down hard against her and let the rapture sweep her away, too, and let her voice join Amoretta's before they both collapsed back on the seat in an exhausted tangle of limbs.

It could have been two minutes or twenty before she moved again, the haze of bliss and tiredness clouding her perceptions while it held her. The Rune had died out, its clumsy construction unable to maintain itself any longer. Sometime along the way Amoretta had helped pull her up into a sitting position, Lillet's head nestled into the crook of her neck, her inhuman body allowing her to recover a little faster from the aftereffects of their climax.

Lillet let out a long and blissful sigh.

"That was wonderful, little love," she murmured against Amoretta's collarbone, her body feeling limp and drained and altogether too sated to move. "I couldn't imagine a better end to the evening."

"Thank you, Lillet; I enjoyed myself too."

Lillet chuckled, partly at the confusion between whether Amoretta meant the ball or the lovemaking, and partly at the way she'd have said the same simple, unadorned truth about either. "Ah, I love you so."

"I love you too, Lillet." Amoretta gently cupped her face, stroking her cheek. Lillet turned her head, lifting her lips up to the other girl's for a soft, tender kiss.

"I can only imagine what our driver must think of us."

"I'm fairly sure that he thinks that we just made love in the carriage." Lillet wasn't entirely sure, but she thought that she caught a wisp of dry humor among the matter-of-fact tone.

"Ah, well, it's not as if it's a secret that we're lovers, and I'm sure that you're not the first person to request that he give extra time to seduce their fellow rider." Lillet had a feeling there would be winks and snickers from some of the palace serving staff for this, but she supposed there were many worse reputations to have. Indeed, she hoped that in ten or twenty years she'd still be as eager for Amoretta's charms that she could be tempted into trysting at times and places where prudence suggested that they wait.

That was one of the best things about being _in_ love with one's lover. Prudence could go hang.

"I think you're right. He understood right away what I was asking, without me having to explain."

"We'll just have to wrap our pelisses tightly around ourselves on our way back to our rooms. I think our ball gowns are a total loss. Which reminds me; I am a little surprised."

"Oh, about what?"

"You."

Amoretta blinked.

"Me?"

"Well," Lillet said, gently running her fingers through Amoretta's hair. "I know you're not shy about having physical desires," she began. "If my direct, first-hand evidence wasn't enough to remind me, then Gaff's complaints every time we've left a more...creative...mess for him to clean up would do the trick. But tonight...lovemaking in the library, lovemaking in the garden, and now clothes-tearing lovemaking in the carriage, all three times initiated by you? I'm _very_ definitely not unhappy, but it _is_ a little unusual. You've been as avid tonight as if you were dying of thirst in a desert and I was a jug of water."

"Um..."

_Um?_ Lillet thought. _Since when does_ Amoretta _hesitate before she explains something?_

"There...actually is a reason for it," Amoretta finished shyly.

"The way I wore my hair was driving you wild with desire? Because if that's the case I'll do it again at the first opportunity," Lillet said, laughing,

"It actually is something like that," Amoretta surprised her.

"It is?"

"It was actually the Avaleda twins that gave me the idea. They were very tired and stressed after completing their Trial Work, but a night of sexual debauchery left them contented and relaxed. Those two do take things a bit too far sometimes, but it did seem very effective, and I couldn't help but think of how much tension and stress it causes you to attend Court Society functions like tonight's ball."

Lillet blinked.

"Amoretta, are you saying that you decided, in advance, that you were going to seduce me tonight if it seemed like I was having a hard time of it at the ball?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure what to say about that."

"It did work," the homunculus pointed out, a bit defensively.

"No, that wasn't it. It's just that, I thought that when you seduced me in the library it was that _you_ wanted to make love, not that you were doing it for my sake alone." And given Amoretta's flirtatious behavior and enthusiastic participation in their lovemaking, it seemed like she'd been interested and aroused all evening. There was no way that she'd been putting on an act; she had no more capacity for artifice than a rock or a tree.

"I wasn't! I knew you would hate it if I just pleasured you for your sake. It doesn't make any difference to me, but I know that it matters to you, that it would make you feel like you were using me. So, I made sure that I would want to make love with you."

Her phrasing of that sounded to Lillet as if it carried _certainty_.

"I'm not really sure that I understand you."

Amoretta brushed her fingertip over the amethyst cameo on Lillet's choker.

"There's a love charm...though it really ought to just be called an aphrodisiac charm, shouldn't it, since all it does is create sexual arousal?"

"For some reason, a lot of people have trouble telling the two concepts apart."

"That's just silly. Even if they do go together very often and can even be complementary, they're not the same at all."

"I know, but humans are strange that way."

Amoretta let out a little sigh of exasperation.

"Anyway, your choker is enchanted with a charm keyed to me, so that I become aroused by the person wearing it." She smiled brightly. "That way, I knew I'd absolutely want you if the situation called for it." She blushed again, adding, "as well as several other times."

"Amoretta! That kind of magic is ferociously unethical, and can even be illegal!"

"I'm the one it's being used to affect, though, and I submitted itself to its power willingly. You didn't even know, so it's not even that you persuaded me to do it."

"Well, that's true," Lillet sighed. "Hedge-witches do a fair amount of business for aging men and women looking to add 'vigor' to their love life, after all. I do feel a little silly, after telling Lady Victorine that I couldn't help her with love charms only to find out that I was wearing one the entire time. It's too bad that we'll have to disenchant it; if anyone notices it'll cause a lot of embarrassing questions, but it'll be a shame to undo such delicate work. How did you ever do it? Most Alchemy aphrodisiac charms are very crude by comparison to Glamour and Sorcery because they have to use brute force over the physical laws governing our natural functions. You could publish this!"

"Oh, I didn't do it, Lillet. I had Marne enchant it for me; she used Allen's focused variant of the Bacchanalia."

"But, that's a Glamour charm."

"Yes, that's why I had to get Marne to help, since I can't do any magic other than Alchemy."

"Amoretta, darling, you're a homunculus. Glamour-based aphrodisiac charms don't work on you."

"Then that means..."

Lillet leaned up and kissed her again.

"That you, my beloved, were just an exceptionally randy wench this evening!"

Amoretta thought that over.

"Well," she decided, "that was a lucky chance...Lillet, why are you laughing?"


End file.
